A sprawling Hudson Valley farm that took more than four decades to piece together has hit the market for $90 million, a price that would shatter sales records across Columbia and Dutchess counties.
Mill Farm, in the hamlet of Ancramdale, spans roughly 2,150 acres of contiguous land surrounded by conservation areas, according to the Wall Street Journal. Compass agent James Augustine, who co-listed the property with Byron Anderson, said such a large, unbroken tract is extremely rare for the region.
The listing price breaks down to nearly $42,000 per acre.Â
Owner Daniel Slott, a former Bear Stearns banker who later ran a junk-bond fund, spent 43 years quietly buying up 29 parcels to create the massive compound. Slott began the assemblage in 1982 with a $250,000 purchase of 160 acres. Over the years, as Columbia County farmland languished and dairy operations shuttered, he expanded his holdings at discounted prices ranging from $250 to $20,000 an acre.
At the heart of Mill Farm is a converted 18th-century grist mill. Slott spent a decade transforming the roughly 5,500-square-foot structure — known as the Mill House — into a four-bedroom residence overlooking a waterfall that still generates a trickle of hydropower.Â
The property also includes nine other homes, 15 barns (some historic, others relocated or rebuilt), miles of gravel roads and a 2.5-mile stretch of former New York Central Railroad track used as a horse gallop.
Slott, who once kept 30 Icelandic horses on the farm, moved to the property full-time around 2000. The estate has roughly 18 miles of private roads and three miles of Punch Brook Stream running through it and a windmill system supplying water across the acreage.
Slott said he hopes the next owner keeps the property intact and plans to spend more time in Iceland, home to the horses that first inspired the farm.
If it trades anywhere near its asking price, the sale would eclipse the area’s previous high mark, an $18.5 million, 290-acre sale in Dutchess County in 2022. While neighboring properties list for a fraction of that sum, Augustine said Columbia County’s luxury market has surged as New Yorkers seek land and low density.
— Holden Walter-Warner
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