The sweeping Chilmark property where Barack Obama’s family vacationed during his presidency has sold for $37 million, the highest residential sale ever on the Island, according to the Dukes County Register of Deeds.
The transaction of the four properties that make up Blue Heron Farm was recorded in the register’s office on Thursday, July 10. The actual price was not disclosed in the filings, nor the buyer, but Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank records indicate the price of the sale. The Land Bank receives revenue based on a 2 percent charge on property sales, and officials reported receiving $740,000 on Thursday from the sale of the four properties.
The 28.5-acre compound that overlooks Tisbury Great Pond went on the market earlier this year for $39 million.
At a sale price of $37 million, the price surpasses the sale of former Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham’s 186-acre West Tisbury property, which went for $32.5 million in 2019, a record sale at the time. The highest overall sale on-Island dates to 2001, when the Nature Conservancy purchased the Herring Creek Farm in Edgartown for $64 million for conservation purposes.
In property records at the Registry of Deeds, the sale was recorded on Thursday as a conveyance to a trust. The four properties were “granted” to the new trust, called the Blue Heron Farm Nominee Trust. The nominee trust was also created and recorded on Thursday and signed by S. Fain Hackney, an Island attorney. When reached, Hackney said that he could not comment as to who the beneficiaries are under the trust that purchased the property.
Paulo C. DeOliveira, register of deeds at Dukes County, said that this type of transaction is set up so that the general public does not know who the buyer is, something allowed under state property laws.
Blue Heron LLC, with an attorney from New York, was listed as the original owner of the property.
The Blue Heron Farm property includes four bedrooms that front Town Cove, an arm of Tisbury Great Pond, and on the Tiasquam River, which empties into the cove. It has two houses and a barn, pool, gym, golf hole, tennis courts, private beach access, and other amenities.
When the Obamas stayed at the property beginning in 2008, the owners were William and Molly Van Devender of Mississippi. The Van Devenders purchased the property in September 2005 for $19.94 million from Richard Fisher et al., executors of the will of M. Anthony Fisher to Blue Heron Properties LLC.
The Obamas became landowners on the Vineyard in 2019 after purchasing a home in Edgartown on Turkeyland Cove Road for $11 million.
Funny how people that sell their home on the vineyard are public knowledge but others don’t ?
All changes in deeds are public information .
Too bad this transaction went to off island brokers who will not spend their money here. Stop using off island brokers who will not circulate the money on the island. Use local people and buy local it helps us all.