'Yellowstone'inCT? Giant land parcels continue to attract buyers post-COVID
Aug. 10—Over the past six months, about 775 land parcels have been purchased in Connecticut as tracked by Zillow, a 10 percent increase from the prior six months. That included a 250-acre lot in Cornwall sold in June for $1.3 million, the largest parcel to change hands since the December 2021 purchase of just over 670 acres on Bald Mountain Road spanning Norfolk and North Canaan.
Connecticut's largest available lot is a Killingly tract abutting the Rhode Island border, which has gone unpurchased since being listed for sale in May 2020. Totaling nearly 650 acres inclusive of the dammed Lake Albert and two smaller ponds, the property is listed for $5.9 million.
Also for sale is a 600-plus acre property in Franklin — a listing describes it as a "Yellowstone-like paradise" — which includes a contemporary ranch residence.
The Killingly and Franklin properties are the two largest parcels available for purchase in southern New England, with a nearly 4,000-acre lot in Maine currently leading the Northeast, situated east of Baxter State Park and Mount Katahdin.
Depending on how one categorizes the town of Darien's $85 million purchase of Great Island this year, the Greenwich Academy buy was either the first or second most expensive land sale in Connecticut dating back to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The head of school at Greenwich Academy told CT Insider the school is considering faculty housing and unspecified athletic facilities on the land.
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Darien bought Great Island to spare it from any further development, with the island including an existing residential compound. The adjacent Ziegler Farm on Long Neck Road is currently Connecticut's most expensive land listing on the market, with the owners seeking $85 million while touting its redevelopment potential across more than a dozen lots.
Prior to the Greenwich Academy and Great Island sales, the Girl Scouts of Connecticut had garnered the previous pandemic high of $9 million, selling the lakeside Camp Candlewood grounds in New Fairfield to the family of the late Subway billionaire Peter Buck who made land conservation a major focus of his philanthropic gifts over the years.
Of lots larger than 50 acres on a price-per-acre basis, the cheapest listed publicly for sale today is a few miles south of Interstate 84 in Ashford, where the owner of nearly 150 acres of land has trimmed $150,000 from the initial asking price in 2021. The Ference Road property is priced currently at $410,000 or just under $2,800 an acre, but with any sale subject to probate court approval.
A 176-acre parcel on the Hartford Road in Salem sold at the end of July for $250,000, or about $1,400 an acre.
In New Jersey, an Estell Manor parcel several miles inland from Atlantic City is the largest available property as a percentage of any Northeast state's total acreage, hitting the market in June at $11.8 million for more than 2,200 acres of land.
Includes prior reporting by Andy Blye, Mollie Hersh and Raga Justin.
Resources
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