A Chicago-based businessman and preservationist has purchased Carter’s Grove Plantation from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation for $7.25 million.
The sale comes almost four months after the foundation reacquired the property in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in May, where its fate had languished for more than three years as attorneys wrangled over what should be done with the property, who should pay for its upkeep and which of the many creditors owed money by the property’s previous owner should be compensated and then while a court-appointed trustee tried unsuccessfully to find a buyer.
Now it transfers to Samuel M. Mencoff, a businessman from the Midwest who has restored and preserved numerous historic properties in the past, including the Aloha Landing Boathouse in Rhode Island. In addition to the plantation, he will also acquire the adjacent 76-acre Martin’s Beach.
“Carter’s Grove is a treasure, in many ways chronicling the history of the New World,” Mencoff said in a news release from the foundation. “My family and I are honored to embrace the stewardship of this remarkable place, fully recognizing the privilege it is and the responsibility it confers. My team and I look forward to working closely with Colonial Williamsburg to preserve this important piece of our national heritage for generations to come.”
A conservation easement on the property requires it be opened to the public, though no plans to expand public access have yet been announced. A call to Mencoff’s office in Chicago on Friday morning was not answered.
In an email to employees, Colonial Williamsburg President and CEO Colin Campbell said all of the costs the foundation had incurred during the bankruptcy process — like attorney fees and the cost of providing upkeep to the property — had been recouped. The property has been restored to the condition it was in prior to the foundation’s sale of the property in 2007, according to the release.
“Sam Mencoff is superbly qualified to be the steward of this important property,” Campbell said in the release. “His commitment to historic preservation, demonstrated through his completion of a number of important restoration projects, is well known in the preservation community.”
Mencoff’s acquisition of the property is a cash deal requiring no mortgage. The sale, which occurred Sept. 11, is complete.
Colonial Williamsburg had owned Carter’s Grove since 1969 prior to the 2007 sale of the plantation to dot-com millionaire Halsey Minor, who agreed to acquire the plantation and Martin’s Beach for $15.3 million. He mortgaged $10.3 million of that amount; however, the property was placed in default in 2007 after he failed to make the final two payments on the mortgage.
The property was then set to be auctioned off on the steps of the Williamsburg-James City County Courthouse in February 2011, but Minor declared bankruptcy at the last minute for the corporation he established to purchase the property, blocking the auction and initiating a lengthy legal battle in federal court over its future.
After more than a year of court hearings and several drafts of bankruptcy plans, a settlement agreement was reached by March 2012. That agreement was nixed after a bankruptcy judge appointed a trustee to oversee the property after allegations from the foundation that Minor had not maintained or repaired the property during the bankruptcy.
The trustee had the property up for sale for $14.95 million in May 2013, but it failed to find a buyer. It was then auctioned in May, with the foundation’s non-cash credit of $7.4 million representing the highest bid.
The $7.4 million non-cash credit was not an actual purchase price for the foundation. Instead, the non-cash credit restored control of the property to the foundation, which was then required to compensate the trustee and handle fees associated with the closing. The auction win erased other claims on the property, including $49,000 from the Internal Revenue Service, $4.9 million for a plane lease from AVN Air LLC and $1.6 million from Sotheby’s, an auction house.
Minor’s vision for the property included full restoration and the installation of a garden system designed by Arne Maynard Garden Design. Those plans did not come to fruition, as his assets were frozen and he was unable to make the final two mortgage payments, launching the prolonged court battle. In a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy case filed in California last year, Minor’s assets were projected to be worth between $10 million and $50 million, while his debts were marked as between $50 million and $100 million.
Minor told WYDaily in May 2013 that he wanted to restore Carter’s Grove to its original state and open it to the public.
“I wish I could have kept [Carter’s Grove] and I wish I could have done what I wanted to do … but at this point I’m going to be extraordinarily happy never to be involved in this again,” Minor said in that interview. “The great tragedy is that while I have been publicly flogged, I was going to be the one to turn it back to the public and everything I was doing was in service of that.”
Instead the property went back to the foundation, which then sought to find a buyer.
Mencoff is a co-CEO of Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC, a private equity firm in Chicago that has invested in about 125 companies and had raised more than $18 billion since its formation in 1992. The company’s goal, according to its website, is to invest in in companies with “outstanding management teams” to “achieve significant long-term appreciation in equity value.”
Carter’s Grove is a historic landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places and on the Virginia Historic Landmarks Register. The Virginia Outdoors Foundation and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources placed a conservation easement on the property in 2007, which preserves its historic, architectural, visual, archaeological and environmental resources in perpetuity, according to the release.
The property is located in the Grove section of James City County, near the county’s border with Newport News. It contains an 18,700 square foot home and 400 acres of land.
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