After years of wrangling over commercial development proposals and lawsuits to block development, New York State bought the property in 1987 and opened the Minnewaska State Park Preserve in 1993. A significant expansion of occurred in 1996 when the Open Space Institute transferred acreage to the park preserve from the old Ellenville watershed lands, now called Sam's Point Preserve. The preserve was managed by the Nature Conservancy and by the Open Space Institute until April 2015, at which time management was transferred to the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and the Palisades Interstate Park Commission.