A swath of land encompassing Whitney Park is seen from above. (Provided photo — John Hendrickson)

LONG LAKE — It’s official. Whitney Park is now up for sale, with a listed price of $125 million.

The listing was first reported on Friday by the Wall Street Journal. The sprawling property encompasses 36,486.7 acres, according to the listing. The property’s sale is marketed by Four Season’s Sotheby’s International Realty.

While the property’s next owner remains unknown for now, the beneficiary of the land’s ultimate sale was publicly revealed in early March: the town of Long Lake, as directed by John Hendrickson in his will. It was a stunning development that left town officials speechless when informed by the estate’s representatives. More on that can be found at tinyurl.com/yah6nad6.

The massive tract of land — which is up for sale as a singular entity — is serviced by 80 miles of maintained private roads and an additional 100 miles of trails. The property boasts two Adirondack Great Camps: Deerlands and Togus. They both sit on the shores of Forked Lake. Deerlands, the larger of the two, was built in 1915 and Togus was built in 1949, according to the listing.

In addition, the property has a number of other historic structures — some of which were built in the 1800s when the tract was first developed. These include a boathouse, caretaker and guest houses, hunting and trapping cabins, barns, garages and a tennis court.

In all, the listing states that there is about 25,000 square feet of utilities and structure on the property. There are a total of 20 bedrooms, 17 bathrooms and one partial bath.

The property’s ecological features are as impressive as its structural amenities. These include 100 miles of shoreline between 22 waterbodies. Its numerous wetlands and forests have made the property a long-sought acquisition for preservation by conservationists.

A storied legacy

Whitney Park’s history dates back to the 1890s. William Collins Whitney consolidated and purchased nearly 80,000 acres of land around the town then. The land was passed down through the family, first to William C. Whitney’s son, Harry Payne Whitney.

In turn, H.P. Whitney handed it to his son, Cornelius Vanderbilt “Sonny” Whitney. Portions of the original holdings were sold to the International Paper Company over time, leaving about 48,000 acres at the time of Sonny Whitney’s death in 1992. When he died, he passed ownership of the tract to his wife, Marylou Whitney. In 1997, she married John Hendrickson.

Shortly after marrying Hendrickson, the couple sold approximately 15,000 acres of the tract to the state for $17.1 million. The state classified the area as a wilderness zone, its most stringent level of conservation protection for land, and named it in honor of William C. Whitney.

The couple remained together until Marylou passed away in 2019, at which point ownership of the land was passed to Hendrickson, who said continuing to own and operate Whitney Park in her absence had become too lonely an undertaking. He put it on the market for $180 million in 2020.

Hendrickson expressed a desire not to sell the land to the state. He grew disenchanted with how the William C. Whitney Wilderness area was managed, citing the subsequent emergence of bass in Little Tupper Lake, which he said at the time decimated the native legacy Brook Trout in the lake’s ecosystem.

Hendrickson, however, did not want to see the land further developed beyond its current makeup. He claimed to have turned down six offers, including one at the full $180 million listing price, because the prospective buyers wanted to develop the land, in a 2020 interview with the Adirondack Explorer.

Hendrickson floated the idea of subdividing the property into 11 smaller parcels to make it potentially easier to sell. Subdivision permits would have needed to be reviewed and approved by the Adirondack Park Agency, and Hendrickson ultimately never filed any subdivision permit requests with the agency.

Five years later, the tract — in its entirety — is once again up for grabs. Its listing can be found at tinyurl.com/yc7m7d2e.