The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank added to its holdings on Chappaquiddick this week with the purchase of 18.2 acres abutting the Three Ponds Reservation.
The seller was Judith Tucker. The purchase price was $950,000.
A 1.6-acre farmstead and antique farmhouse situated at the heart of the property was sold separately by Ms. Tucker to Zachary Pinerio, a Chappaquiddick artist, for $550,000.
Long known as the Whale Jaw Farm, the historic landscape lies south of the Chappaquiddick Road and once included about 60 acres.
Brine’s Pond, purchased in 1988 as the land bank’s first property on Chappy, lies to the west.
Three Ponds Reservation was first assembled in 2002 in a partnership between the land bank and the Martha’s Vineyard Preservation Trust (today the Vineyard Trust). That year the two trusts joined forces to buy the property formerly owned by Bob and Ruth Marshall — 43 acres and a farmhouse on the north side of the Chappaquiddick Road. At the same time, the land bank bought 37 acres of the former Whale Jaw Farm, and another seven-acre parcel.
Today the former Marshall property is Slipaway Farm.
The new property will be included in the management plan for Three Ponds Reservation which includes more than 280 acres. (The three ponds are Brine’s, Buttonbush and Winterberry.)
The land bank buys public conservation land, farmland, scenic views, aquifer protection and beaches using funds from a two per cent fee on most real estate transactions.
It maintains a large network of trails across the Vineyard and on Chappaquiddick, the small rural island that forms the extreme eastern edge of Edgartown.
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