A 100-acre estate in Newport, New Hampshire, once owned by the creator of the Long Island Railroad and later by the inventor of the light machine gun, will be auctioned live on Sept. 7 with Platinum Luxury Auctions.
Andrew Peterson of The Petersons Inc. Country Real Estate is handling the late gun baron William Ruger’s property and has listed the estate at $2.5 million as a reference point.
“The family wants to sell it this year,” Mr. Peterson said. They have two big properties to sell, including the most expensive property on the market in Maine, according to listing records. Located in Bar Harbor, it's listed for $12.5 million and is set to go to auction without reserve on the same day.
Trayor Lesnock, president and owner of Platinum Luxury Auctions, said that the family wanted to sell quickly and move on.
Because of the stigma around the word “auction,” Mr. Lesnock said, “we are typically still the last resort for the luxury seller.”
Listing records show that the estate listed in January for $3.75 million. Mr. Peterson said this price included the full 500-acre property and an extra three-bedroom, two-bathroom log cabin currently being rented out. This cabin can be purchased for an additional cost upon request.
The auction, which has no reserve, includes 100 acres, a 7,465-square-foot main house, a finished three-story barn, a separate gentleman's library, a heated workshop and a four-bedroom guest house currently occupied by Ruger’s estate hands, a couple in their 80s, Mr. Peterson said.
The four-bedroom, six-bathroom house was built by 19th-century Long Island Railroad top executive Austin Corbin in 1880.
“He used to have a private railroad to bring his friends to the property,” Mr. Peterson said. Corbin also established Corbin Park, officially called the Blue Mountain Forest Association, an exclusive, roughly 25,000-acre, 30-member hunting club located adjacent to the property. Residents of the house will not have automatic membership to Corbin Park.
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Ruger acquired the land in the 1980s and worked to restore and customize it through the 2000s, Mr. Peterson said.
“He was essentially there as a single man so it has more of a man’s touch, but it’s very elegant,” Mr. Peterson said. The furnishings will be for sale in a separate auction, he added.
Ruger almost entirely rebuilt the home, including a seven-figure renovation to the 51-foot great room gallery, which entailed painted and gilding ceiling details, custom mahogany and walnut woodworking and doors and a railway car-like wet bar, Mr. Peterson said.
Ruger also updated it to modern standards in terms of wiring, plumbing, appliances, and technology, Mr. Peterson said, and added an elevator, a three-car garage and a sleeping porch.
Ruger died in 2002 at age 86. As a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he developed plans for what would become the light machine gun, an individual infantry weapon used in the U.S. Army. He then founded gun company Sturm, Ruger & Co., where he remained chairman emeritus until his death. His son, William, who went on to serve as chairman of the company, died last year.
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The Lake Sunapee area, located about 20 minutes away, will sell on average over 30 seven-figure homes in a year, but a house of this scale selling for over seven figures is relatively rare in the Newport area, Mr. Peterson said.
Mr. Peterson said the estate is drawing considerable interest, having seen 12 buyers in the first week and expecting 40 to 60 qualified buyers over the entire viewing period, which began Aug. 15 and ends Sept. 7.
Mr. Peterson said he did not think the market trends in the area would affect the auction sale because of the caliber of the house. “These properties involve something beyond money,” whether it be stewardship, history or something worth preserving, Mr. Peterson said.
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[Editor's note: This story has been updated to note that William Ruger, Jr. died in 2018)