[M]ore than 1 percent of Stowe could be yours, if you have $10 million.
A 766-acre parcel at the end of Brownsville Road, bordered by almost 13,000 miles of state forest, is for sale, listed at $9.95 million by RE/MAX North Professionals.
Christopher Story, an oil company executive, bought the land in 1950 as a lavish first anniversary gift to his wife, Genevieve Story, 21 years younger and a secretary at their company, which later became CITGO.
“Every day, he bought her a gift. Not necessarily just monetarily, just flowers or anything, every day,” said Nancy Hughes, one of the four siblings who own the property. “He ended up passing away from kidney problems in 1960, so they were only married a little over 10 years.
“Even when he was sick and not able to get out, he was still a consultant for the City Service Oil Co., and he would have a person there come and bring her gifts every day. They were the love of each other’s lives.”
Hughes lives in Kentucky, and her three brothers are scattered across Georgia and Florida.
“They came up from New York and just loved it here,” Hughes said of Stowe. “It was their getaway from the city.”
Genevieve Story continued to come to the property until she died in 2011 at age 96.
Property taxes on the land run about $14,000 per year — artificially low, because much of the property is in current use — and maintenance on the farmhouse on an adjacent lot is costly.
“Our lives have changed. My aunt passed away in 2011, and we had planned on keeping everything, but as time goes on, everyone’s lives change,” Hughes said. “We all now have grandchildren, and families are spreading out.”
Hughes and her brothers have fond memories of the land, including luscious raspberry patches and bountiful wildlife. They had wanted to leave it to their children, but that generation doesn’t have the memories of and interest in the land that their parents do, so in July the family approached Rich Gardner, an owner and Realtor at RE/MAX North Professionals, about selling it.
“It’s very bittersweet. We love it here, and it’s just hard. It was a very hard decision to make,” Hughes said.
As of today, the property has been on the market for 69 days, and “we’ve had a few people looking,” Gardner said.
The farmhouse is under contract for just under $500,000.
Big chunk of land
The town of Stowe is made up of 46,528 acres.
At 766 acres, this property clocks in at 1.6 percent of the town.
That’s a huge chunk of Stowe to be up for grabs.
Properties of that size are very rare these days, said Stowe Realtor McKee Macdonald of Coldwell Banker Carlson Real Estate.
“Those things were available” more readily before Stowe became a haven for developers, Macdonald said. “You had old farmers that owned large swaths. Nowadays, it’s a rare product. They are hard to find. This is probably the only one left, for the most part, that hasn’t been conserved. It’s a unique parcel. It’s something that offers a lot of potential.”
Macdonald sees potential both for development and land conservation.
Gardner says he’s been in contact with the Stowe Land Trust about possibilities for conserving the land from development, but no offers have been made.
“From what I hear around the community, that’s what most people would like to see happen there. I just don’t know if it’s possible at the price they’re asking,” Macdonald said.
“The Story family property is the largest remaining unprotected piece of private forestland in Stowe by a long shot,” said Kristen Sharpless, executive director of Stowe Land Trust.
“Conserving it would mean protecting the many benefits its intact forests provide, including a productive source of local wood fiber and fuel, high-quality wildlife habitat, and water-quality protection. The property is also a significant part of the viewshed coming into town along Route 100 from Morrisville as well as from across the valley looking toward the Worcesters,” Sharpless said.
“People love walking, skiing and horseback riding on the Class 4 roads that run through and next to the property. Conserving the land would help protect that experience, which could be lost if the land is developed and the roads upgraded. We’d also love to see the land — which has been posted for a few years — opened back up for the community to enjoy.
“Given that it’s right next to CC Putnam State Forest, it would be great for people to be able to resume enjoying access for hiking, skiing, biking, hunting and more again,” Sharpless said.
Ten million dollars is a lot of money for a person to buy land and put it under easement, Macdonald pointed out.
“We have a tremendous amount of conservation money within our community, but still you’ve got to get to a number that sellers are going to accept,” Macdonald said.
“It’s a special property that Mrs. Story has protected for years in Brownsville, and I think those properties should be maintained and preserved for the future, for use that would be basically town use. It’s such a special property, I don’t believe that we need any development in a piece like that,” said Pall Spera, who owns Pall Spera Company Realtors.
What the market will bear
Gardner and David Parsons, his business partner, agreed on the $9.95 million asking price after about a week of research into the Stowe real estate market, as well as how much of the land can actually be used.
“How much is an acre of land worth?” Gardner asked. “We spent quite a bit of time on this.”
The land is zoned rural residential, where the minimum lot size is 5 acres, said Sarah McShane, Stowe zoning administrator.
She doesn’t think any wetlands on that property have been catalogued by the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources that would impede development, but cautioned that they can emerge, shift or be discovered at any time.
When Gardner was approached about selling the land, “I was excited. I was honored that I was asked to be one of a group of agents that I’m sure had conversations with the family. It’s exciting.”
“For me, it’s going to be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to market a property like this,” he said.
The property is being advertised nationally, Gardner said.
“I’d love to think our buyer lives in Vermont. I’m sure there are some people or groups of people that could, but our buyer might be well beyond the Vermont borders. We’re trying to reach as many people that we think would have an interest in this type of property,” he said.
‘Amazing, unique views’
Macdonald grew up near the property, and his love for it shone through Wednesday morning.
“You just sort of hopped over a stream” to get there, he said. “I grew up mountain biking through there. There’s some gorgeous beaver ponds in there, open meadows. You’ve got a really nice trail network system that goes through there. … You get to this point up on the back of this property where there’s like a saddle that goes down,” from which the Worcester Mountain Range is prominently visible.
It boasts “some of the most amazing, unique views that you’ll see in Stowe,” Macdonald said.
“It’s not your standard Pinnacle or Mount Mansfield view; it’s an up-close, personal and private view of the Worcesters. It’s a very cool piece of property. It’s sort of the original mountain bike trails back in the late ’80s, early ’90s that people were riding,” he said.
Gardner said he received joking offers from friends, saying if they win the state Megabucks lottery, “they’ll call me,” he said.
“I’ve gotten a lot of people that have reached out that think it’s a pretty amazing” piece of land, Gardner said.
“We just love it here,” Hughes said. “I just have fond memories of my aunt and my grandmother, just spending time and enjoying it, walking. I remember just walking down the road toward Moss Glen Falls. By then I was a teenager, and it was just so beautiful.
“It’s truly one of God’s creations.”
