Why Did a Billionaire Snap Up Homes on a Sandbar in Duluth? - WSJ [View all]

DULUTH, Minn.—When the wife of a billionaire heir to the Cargill food company fortune paid $2.5 million for a home in a funky neighborhood of beach bungalows in this Lake Superior port, it didn’t draw much notice. But after Kathy Cargill, wife of James R. Cargill II, started buying up multiple additional homes unconnected to the original parcel on Park Point, alarms went off for many residents of the 7-mile strip of sand near Duluth’s main tourist area, with popular beaches and a city park.

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Roger Reinert, newly elected mayor of the city of 86,000, wrote a letter last month to Cargill, beseeching her to reveal her plans for around 20 parcels she now controls. “The plan for these properties is unknown, and that is concerning to many, including me,” Reinert wrote in a recent social-media post in which he suggested residents consider not selling her any more homes until she showed her hand. It turns out that Cargill, who says she planned to spruce up and help modernize the neighborhood for everyone, was listening. And she wasn’t happy. “I think an expression that we all know—don’t pee in your Cheerios—well, he kind of peed in his Cheerios right there, and definitely I’m not going to do anything to benefit that community,” Cargill said in an interview.

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Things got worse after a local reporter got in touch with Cargill in December and quoted her saying: “The homes that we bought were pieces of crap. I couldn’t imagine living in any of them.” Even those like Brooks Anderson, a 90-year-old retired minister and longtime peace activist who emphasizes neighborliness and believes the Cargills have good intentions, were taken aback by the comment. “This is my piece of crap, and I love it,” he said, sitting in his modest home with a view of Lake Superior through pine trees out his back windows. “I hope she regrets saying that.”

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Cargill said she didn’t think it was anybody’s business what she did with the properties since she had done everything legally. She said her only intention was to make improvements to the neighborhood while helping some residents move on to the next stage in their lives. She said she planned to build homes for some of her relatives, put in small-scale natural areas, fund improvements to the city park, open a coffee shop and build a complex for pickleball, basketball and street hockey. Then, with the newspaper article, the mayor’s comments and attacks that friends and family showed her online, she soured on the whole project.

“The good plans that I have down there for beautifying, updating and fixing up Park Point park or putting up that sports court, forget it. There’s another community out there with more welcoming people than that small-minded community,” she said.

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