The Massachusetts chapter of The Nature Conservancy announced this week it will purchase the John Hoft Farm, 90 acres of rolling pastures and unspoiled morainal woodlands which embrace Duarte’s Pond and the moist bogs off Lambert’s Cove Road in West Tisbury.

The farm is owned by Daniel Alisio and will be named the Hoft Farm Preserve, in memory of his late wife, Marguerite Hoft Alisio, whose family owned the farm for over 100 years.

The announcement by The Nature Conservancy ends months of public speculation and local apprehension about the future of the Lambert’s Cove farm, which has been in the public eye on the Vineyard for several months. At one point this year the farm was alternately targeted for purchase by the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank and also a development group which wanted to build a golf course on it.

Now the farm will be protected through a conservation sale. Among other things, The Nature Conservancy intends to use the turn-of-the century farmhouse as a conservation field station to support land protection, habitat restoration and ecological research on the Island. An old three-story barn will be converted to a laboratory for ecologists and wildlife biologists.

“It’s a working place, it always has been and now it will continue to be so,” said Tom Chase, who is the Islands bioreserve manager for The Nature Conservancy.

“Daniel Alisio has done a wonderful thing,” declared Carter Roberts, Massachusetts director for the Conservancy, in a prepared statement announcing the purchase this week.

For Mr. Alisio, who is 94, the sentiment was mutual. “We are very pleased about the whole situation,” he said from his home in Vineyard Haven yesterday. “It is the wish of the grandfather and the great grandfather and the mother and the father and all the children down the line — this is just what we wanted.”

The purchase price has not been disclosed, in part because two anonymous donors have pledged funds as lead gifts toward the purchase. But the price will be revealed later through the public record at the time of the transfer.

Mr. Alisio’s asking price of $2.5 million has been widely reported for a number of months.

The purchase marks another juncture for The Nature Conservancy. The Conservancy’s presence on the Vineyard is long established but its visibility has increased in recent years.

The mission of the Conservancy centers on studying and protecting the biodiversity of large tracts of land. Mr. Chase said when the Conservancy first opened a program on the Vineyard its focus was the rare coastal sandplain habitat. But he said there is now increased awareness of the value of the morainal woodlands.

“We don’t just look at diversity as a spot on the map; we have been looking at the whole stretch of land from Long Island up through the Cape and Islands,” he said. “If you look at all the woodlands, you might say that we have tons of that stuff; but if you look at the Vineyard woodlands against other woodlands we have the best. They are generally intact and many retain their native species.”

This includes spotted turtles, box turtles, ovenbirds, scarlet tanagers and endemic species such as the water willow stem borer.

Mr. Chase also said The Nature Conservancy has had problems for some time finding a place to house the crews who come to the Island in spring and fall to do controlled burns on the sandplain grasslands. This year the crews will live in the Alisio farmhouse, and Mr. Chase said the biologists and summer interns from other conservation organizations also can stay there.

Public access to the property will open following an inventory of sensitive resource areas. Mr. Chase said it will likely be in the form of walking trails.

The property abuts the protected land around the Wakeman Conservation Center, which is headquarters for five of the key conservation groups on the Vineyard; Mr. Chase said this is another plus.

“This is The Nature Conservancy’s way of doing work that matters to the whole community, and especially helps strengthen bonds among the conservation organizations. If our profile is expanding, above all we want to see it expanding in concert with our partner organizations, especially those at the Wakeman Center,” he said.

The farm includes 90 acres of stunningly beautiful pastures, woods and lowlands along Lambert’s Cove Road. There are pine barrens and oak barrens and beautifully maintained stone walls, and the rambling farmhouse and barn are built on fieldstone foundations.

“It has the old farm feel,” said Mr. Chase. “It has genuine character as opposed to contrived character; it is a well cared for property and it shows all the signs. And what is nice about this farm is parts have been used in an agricultural fashion for a long time, but nestled in are some pristine habitats.” The property harbors rare wildflowers like rock roses and other rare species like the tiger beetle. Mr. Chase said he is certain that an inventory will reveal even more.

In the press statement, Mr. Roberts underscored the importance of the purchase. “The Vineyard is not just anyplace. It’s unique landscape — stone walls, rural roads and open vistas are under siege. The only way these places can be protected is by acting swiftly, together with forward-thinking individuals like Dan Alisio and Marguerite Hoft’s children, Jeanette Bartak and Alvin Noyes,” he said.

Vineyard Conservation Society executive director Brendan O’Neill also was recognized for his role in facilitating the purchase.

Mr. Alisio was represented in the purchase by Peter Fyler, a real estate broker with Barbara B. Nevin Real Estate in Edgartown.

Early this year Mr. Alisio became involved in negotiating with the land bank for the purchase of the farm, but then it was also revealed that a group of developers was interested in building a golf course on the property, and the talks later broke down.

In his own statement issued at the time of the announcement this week, Mr. Fyler praised The Nature Conservancy and expressed relief at the outcome. “The difficulty has been to get someone to come forward to do the right thing,” he wrote. “Mr. Alisio also deserves the community’s appreciation for his constant efforts over the years to maintain the farm in its pastoral setting.”

Bitter feelings still linger in some quarters over the failed land bank negotiations, but Mr. Chase said in the end it was really more about finding the right match.

“Why did we succeed? The blunt answer is some donors like dealing with some organizations and not others,” he said.

“I think that these particular donors liked the goals of The Nature Conservancy and the way we conduct business — trust has a lot to do with this.

“A lot of people feel there are too many conservation organizations on the Island, and I think this is clearly not the case. We have great strength through the diversity of the organizations. It’s the diversity that allows the Island landowner a menu of people and organizations to select from. Public and private agencies alike all play an important role, and this is not a question of the Conservancy being better than another organization; it’s a matter of us being on the menu.”

He concluded: “Mr. Alisio’s interest wasn’t just financial interest, but it was the interest of his family. We are not just talking about income, but families and ethical obligations and that is what this is about. There is no question how excited and proud we are to be able to work with Mr. Alisio on this.”