John Hoft Farm on Lambert’s Cove Road is a spectacular place, a 90-acre expanse of pasture, woods and lowlands that, for many people, symbolizes the almost-vanished farming tradition of Martha’s Vineyard.

But now, the Hoft Farm is an unlikely battleground.

That’s because the farm is for sale, and developers, conservationists and private buyers are elbowing each other in an effort to secure this gorgeous parcel of West Tisbury history.

The man at the center of this battle is Daniel Alisio, the 94-year-old widower of the late Marguerite Hoft Alisio and the executor of her family farm, which carries a nonnegotiable price tag of $2.5 million.

In gaming parlance, Mr. Alisio holds all the chips. Though he doesn’t stand to make a dime off the Hoft deal — all the money is earmarked for Marguerite’s two children and grandchildren, he says — this charming and blunt businessman decides who buys the farm.

Period.

This makes Mr. Alisio a wanted man. Over recent months, he has spent time at his Main street, Vineyard Haven home negotiating with families, developers, golf course builders, and especially, the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank Commission.

“Everyone has started coming out of the woods recently,” Mr. Alisio says. “Like raccoons.”

For now, the land bank remains the biggest raccoon. Mr. Alisio prefers a situation where Hoft Farm is preserved, and the public commission seems like an ideal match to conserve and manage the property. Many West Tisbury residents agree.

But after long, private negotiations and a few offers, the land bank and Mr. Alisio are still far apart.

Mr. Alisio claims that the land bank has consistently undervalued the Hoft Farm, offering him lowball prices for the inland property while paying top dollar elsewhere for coastal lands.

“I have no gripe with the land bank,” Mr. Alisio says. “But when they first offered me $80,000 for the farm, it was an insult. If you go into a store and see a suit on sale for $100, you pay $100 — you don’t offer them $50.”

[Land Bank executive director James Lengyel, citing confidentiality rules for negotiations, declined to respond this week to Mr. Alisio’s specific charges. But he did say that the “land bank works very hard to be reasonable and fair to all sellers. Every property is appraised using contemporary comparables and sound judgment as to its developability.”]

Mr. Alisio is adamant about his price. When he says $2.5 million is a non-negotiable price, its non-negotiable. That’s why, he says, he turned down another offer two weeks ago, from a private individual who made a $2 million bid to conserve the property.

It also means that Mr. Alisio and his agent, Peter Fyler of Barbara B. Nevin Real Estate in Edgartown, have begun to turn their attention to developers — in particular, groups that want to turn the Hoft Farm into an 18-hole championship golf course.

Mr. Fyler says there are now five different golf course groups playing suitor to Mr. Alisio. And these groups are serious, he says.

“We have tried desperately to get the land bank to come around and preserve the property,” Mr. Fyler says. “But at this point, we feel that the next best thing, other than a residential development, would be a golf course.”

Though the public has been alarmed by this talk, there are some who suggest that threats of golf courses and development are little more than ploys by Mr. Fyler and Mr. Alisio to keep their $2.5 million price.

In order to preserve his property, these critics say, Mr. Alisio must be willing to lower his price and meet a conservation group halfway.

But Mr. Alisio insists that this deal is not purely about money. It’s about fairness. Mr. Alisio feels $2.5 million is a reasonable price — for the land bank, another conservation group or anyone else.

“Mr. Alisio feels very deeply about the John Hoft family and he would like to have some recognition of that,” says Mr. Fyler. “The ideal [situation] would be to have the property preserved as the John Hoft Farm. And that’s why we’re frustrated.”

Clearly, Mr. Alisio still holds the farm close to his heart. With sharp precision, he recalls his years working with Marguerite’s family in the extensive orchards and fields, picking vegetables and raising livestock.

There were cattle on the farm, Mr. Alisio says — dairy cows producing milk for butter prized by West Chop summer people. There were pigs for smoked ham. For vegetables, there were turnips, squash and potatoes, and the farm was also home to an enormous apple orchard with hundreds of trees.

The Hoft Farm is rich with such history, Mr. Alisio says, stretching back four generations.

“Right back to the Civil War,” Mr. Alisio says. “1861.”

And though the Hoft property no longer produces vegetables in great supply, Mr. Alisio still works the farm. Last summer, he says, he mounted the farm tractor and blazed through the pasture himself.

For Mr. Alisio, a Rhode Island native and astute businessman who also worked as an Island barber, farming remains a passion — one that he shared with Marguerite, who died last November.

If all else fails, Mr. Alisio says, he’ll buy the Hoft Farm and move himself to Lambert’s Cove.

“I’ll go up there and live on the hill and have 10 head of cattle,” he says, smiling. “I’ve been a workhorse up there. I spent my life there. I love that farm.

Mr. Alisio pauses.

“But love,” he says, “doesn’t feed you.”