BUSINESS
Former Girl Scout camp on Lake Winnipesaukee's Meredith Neck sells for $18 million
By John Koziol Union Leader Correspondent Feb 16, 2024 Updated 6 hrs ago
The entrance to Camp Menotomy at 386 Meredith Neck Road, shown on Thursday. The former Girl Scout camp was listed for sale at $20 million on Feb. 9 and sold the next day for $18 million.
John Koziol/Union Leader Correspondent
MEREDITH — The former 95-acre Camp Menotomy Girl Scout Camp on Meredith Neck has been sold for $18 million to a developer who plans to build seven waterfront homes on the site.
Most recently owned by the Camp Menotomy Trust, in care of the Boston-based Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts, the property at 386 Meredith Neck Road went on the market on Feb. 9 for $20 million, according to Realtor.com, and was removed on Feb. 11.
The listing agent was Susan Bradley.
The property was purchased by Menotomy Development LLC for $18 million. The developer is Jeremy R. Martin, president of Lakes Region Design Group in Laconia.
The project, to be called The Preserve at Whispering Pines, is in the early stages of planning, and no formal submissions have been made to the town of Meredith, according to a project spokesperson.
Plans call for construction of seven private, single-family custom-built homes along approximately 5,000 feet of waterfront, Scott Tranchemontagne of the Montagne Powers public relations firm said in an email to the Union Leader.
He noted that current regulations would have permitted “approximately 25 home lots” on the site.
He said the homes will be set back from the shoreline by at least 125 feet and will be connected to Meredith Neck Road by a new private roadway built to town specifications.
“Approximately 30 percent of the property” will be preserved, with new walking trails featuring markers detailing the history of the Girl Scout camp, and an existing loon sanctuary on the southern cove will be protected, he said.
On its website, the Meredith Historical Society says that Camp Menotomy “was formerly Camp Wauganakit for boys until 1935” and was purchased in 1939 by Arlington Girl Scouts Inc.
From 1963 to 1980, the camp was operated by the Mistick Side Girl Scout Council, and then by the Patriots’ Trail Girl Scout Council.
The Historical Society said “Menotomy” is the old Native American name for the area now known as Arlington. It translates to “place of swift running water.”
For the 2023 tax year, the town assessed the former camp’s value at $10.41 million. The property contains an office building 36 tent platforms; five cabins; an infirmary; a shower house; two bath houses; five open sheds with sinks; several outbuildings; and a dock.
According to town records, some of the improvements were made as recently as 2006.
The camp’s fate has been a topic of online discussion on the Winnipesaukee forum since Feb. 10.
Several people on the forum expressed the hope that the property would be developed sensibly. Others pointed out that the consequence of such a significant sale “will most likely drive Meredith assessments crazy for waterfront parcels.”
One person wrote that the Town will be happy “to get this parcel back on the tax rolls in any form or fashion….”
The sale of Camp Menotomy is one of the largest property transfers in Meredith in recent memory, along the lines of Rusty McLear’s sale of Hampshire Hospitality Holdings to TPG Hotels & Resorts, of Rhode Island, in April 2019.
Although McLear didn’t disclose the sales price for the Church Landing, Inn at Mill Falls, Bay Point at Mill Falls, Chase House and Mill Falls Marketplace, he told the Laconia Daily Sun that it was “well north” of the town’s $25 million cumulative assessment of those properties.
LakesNews@unionleader.com
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