Wheeling Native Ed Pennington Brokers $14.75M Sale of 173-Acre Ranch in Sedona, Arizona
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WHEELING -- There came a point about three years ago where realtor and Wheeling native Ed Pennington and his client Ingrid Hills had a decision to make. Hills was trying to sell her property, El Rojo Grande, 173 acres of pristine land in Sedona, Arizona. A developer had what Pennington said was a very good offer on the table.
Yet it was a developer. Hills, Pennington and Pennington's real estate partner Jeanette Sauer had good offers from developers before and after. And they knew what those developers wanted to do with that land -- break it up into many smaller parcels.
Yet was that the best solution for Hills and the Sedona community, to chop up the home of so much vegetation and wildlife just because the dollar figure was good?
"And that's when we came to the conclusion that she was going to hold out for very, very light development or just wait for the person who wants it for exactly for what it is," Pennington said.
They eventually got their ultimate wish. They recently closed a deal with a single buyer, who purchased the entire 173-acre ranch for $14.75 million.
When pen hit paper on the transaction, Pennington, an agent with Russ Lyon Sotheby's International Realty, said it was a very good feeling. That's not just because he closed a deal on the largest privately owned property in Sedona. He closed a deal that would keep that large tract of pristine land in just that condition. That was good for the seller, the buyer and the community, he said.
"I had this listing for over four years, and everyone who wanted to buy it was a developer and we had lots of offers," he said.
"But the seller was steadfast in believing she wanted to protect the property from development. And we were finally able to find that person."
There's a saying in Sedona, Pennington said, that "God created the Grand Canyon, but he lives in Sedona." He has been selling real estate in the city for 19 years, after he and his then-fiancee decided to move west. Before that, Pennington, a Linsly graduate, had been president of King Chevrolet in Wheeling, as well as a board member and CEO of the Children's Home of Wheeling.
He had visited Sedona when he was in college at the University of Arizona, yet when he began living there, he saw how much truth there was to that local saying. And he saw plenty of evidence of that saying in El Rojo Grande.
Originally built for the Wrigley family, it was later sold to the Hills family of Hills Bros. Coffee fame. Ingrid Hills would let Pennington hike and walk his dog around the vast property. It has its own red rock formation, something Pennington had never seen on another Sedona property. Native American artifacts had been found on the land, linking the present to people who tread those grounds a thousand years before.
As he soaked all of that in, his personal wish was that someone would buy the ranch and leave it as one property. He knew there was a chance of that when single prospective buyers would take a tour.
"Watching people fall in love with the experience was very, very cool," he said. "When the deer would come up in front of us or a mountain lion or the bobcats or the eagles soaring, people would literally get goosebumps and want to sit down and absorb the energy of the property."
Now he knows that energy will continue to radiate from El Rojo Grande. He's happy to have had a hand in that. He also looks back at his time growing up in Wheeling -- delivering newspapers as a boy, touring with his band "Kim and Ed," his time in the auto industry and with the Children's Home -- and how it helped him reach the point that he has.
"I think Wheeling gave me a lot of different experiences," he said. "My family was fantastic. My friends were fantastic. I think Wheeling plays a very large part in my upbringing in business.
"I was led to this job in Sedona and I think I was very well prepared," he added. "I love being from Wheeling. It's very important to me and still is."