Land Bank Pursuing Purchase Of Two Properties Off Milestone Road

The Nantucket Land Bank is closing in on a deal to acquire a pair of properties off Milestone Road that have been the subject of a foreclosure, a condemnation by the Health Department, and an ongoing dispute over ownership.

The two properties - which total more than two acres - are already surrounded by existing Land Bank holdings. While the access is located off Milestone Road, the physical addresses are 32 and 34 Hinsdale Road.

While the elected Land Bank Commission rarely - if ever - discloses which properties it is targeting before a deal is closed and recorded at the Nantucket Registry of Deeds, its pursuit of the Hinsdale Road properties was revealed publicly in several different venues over the past month.

During the Land Bank’s review of the two finalists for its executive director position in early December, Rachael Freeman - who was ultimately chosen to lead the organization - referred to her work on securing an offer to purchase the properties in her resume as a “key achievement.”

Freeman stated that she “Negotiated and received a signed Offer to Purchase the 32 & 34 Hinsdale Road properties, which were in discussion for over 20 years and a top Commission priority for the past 5 years.”

Both Freeman and Nantucket Land Bank Commission chair Kristina Jelleme declined to discuss the potential acquisition of the Hinsdale Road properties.

But the pending deal was also the subject of significant public discussion during a recent meeting of the Nantucket Board of Health, which held a hearing regarding a “housing correction order” to resolve some of the issues discovered at a recent inspection by public health and safety officials.

That property at 34 Hinsdale Road - where a building was condemned by the town in August 2023 - was the subject of a foreclosure action by Deutsche Bank in October 2018, when the bank took possession of the lot from former owner Robert Jepson.

Attorney Kevin Manganaro, an attorney for Deutsche Bank, stated that “since that time, possession of the property has been contested. There have been a few different lawsuits with Mr. Jepson and his two adult children. My client is in the (state) housing court now seeking an eviction order against the Jepsons.”

Manganaro, as well as Jepson and his attorney Tom Vawter, all mentioned the pending sale of the properties to the Land Bank.

“The goal is to transfer the property to the Land Bank, Manganaro said. “That agreement is in place between my client and the Land Bank, but it cannot be completed until the housing court completes its process of awarding possession in favor of my client and issuing an order to evict the Jepsons and (another tenant named) Mr. Thompson. Even though my client has had legal title since the foreclosure sale in 2018, my client has never been in possession of the property, and it has been a contested issue with Mr. Jepson since the foreclosure sale. We’ve been in court a number of times up and down the federal and state court system for years. That is where things stand.”

Jepson told the Board of Health that he expected to sell his smaller, adjacent lot at 32 Hinsdale Road to the Land Bank today, Jan. 6th, and that the Land Bank would be taking on the responsibility of fixing some of the issues at the property, including a failed septic system.

“There is interest on behalf of the Land Bank to purchase the property and, as I understand it, there’s an agreement to purchase the property from the bank and the other property around it that Mr. Jepson owns that the Land Bank is also interested in purchasing,” Vawter said.

Manganaro, the attorney for Deutsche Bank, stated he anticipated it would be a matter of months before all the issues at the housing court are resolved.

The Nantucket Islands Land Bank was established by an act of the state legislature in 1983, the first program of its kind in the United States, with a mission to acquire land for open space, agriculture, and recreational uses through a 2 percent tax on real estate transfers. Over the past 40 years, it has acquired more than 3,400 acres of land that is now open to the public.

Since the pandemic and the ensuing real estate boom on Nantucket, the Land Bank's revenues have surged, and it has gone on a spree of acquisitions, the most recent of which was its largest ever: the $26 million purchase of a beach compound on the north shore in November 2024.