Ask John Odonnell
Located in the High Peaks Region, near Keeseville and Ausable Forks, this 505-acre Adirondack property offers abundant possibilities. Build your camp, mountain retreat, or family compound on a property with plenty of space for hiking, hunting, ATV-riding, and other recreational activities. It could also be your next business opportunity, as a recreational destination for glamping, vacation cottages, or RV sites.
Minutes from both exit 34 (I-87) and the Village of Keeseville, this property is easily accessible. With frontage on State Route 9N and Hill Street, it offers many sites to locate a home with views, seclusion, or both. Turn this into your family compound or legacy property for generations to enjoy.
The terrain is varied from acre to acre. The eastern portion of the property is best described as a forested sand plain, dominated by white and red pine trees, with an occasional oak. It is level, well-drained and easily developed. This part of this property, with its favorable soil types, has a history of farming and agricultural activities. This is evident by the presence of wire fence long-imbedded in boundary line trees, white cedar split-rail fencing, and “pasture-trees,” those long-lived specimens with large, spreading crowns.
Follow the ATV trails to the west, and the landscape changes to the typical Adirondack terrain of boulders and timber, rolling to steep, with intermittent streams and small wetlands. The forest composition shifts to white pine, oak species, maple species, and a low cover of blueberries. The many ATV trails will take you up near the open rock face of Smith Mountain, which provides beautiful long-distance views of the Adirondack High Peaks and the Olympic-famous Whiteface Mountain, 20 miles distant.
The property has two small pit mines, where granite was harvested long ago for the construction of stone buildings. Adjacent to these mines are tailing piles of angular granite blocks which have been hidden by the encroaching forest, and that have become refuge for porcupines and other wildlife.
This property has an abundant and investable timber resource of red and white pine, red and white oak, and other mixed hardwood species. 312 of the 505 acres are enrolled in the Real Property Tax Law 480a, a NYS tax abatement program where enrolled properties enjoy a lower assessment and correspondingly lower school and county/town taxes for long-term forest management. No active management has occurred since enrollment in 2017, and no timber cutting has occurred under this tenure of ownership. The listing agent, John O’Donnell, is the landowner’s forester.
The property recently is under the Keeseville Water District. While there is no infrastructure within the property, single family homes along Hill Street are on public water. Electricity is available at Hill Street and State Route 9N
The property is less than 20 minutes from the many attractions on Lake Champlain, ~ ¾ hour from Lake Placid, ~1½ hours from Montreal, and under 5 hours from NYC. Locally, all the amenities can be had in Keeseville or Ausable Forks, but if you cannot find it there, the growing city of Plattsburgh, with abundant box stores and an international airport, is a short, 20-mile drive away.
