A flashy, McLaren-driving member of America's fourth-richest family has raised eyebrows and left neighbors “concerned” after he bought 10 houses and called them “rubbish”.
Kathy Cargill is listed as manager We are members of North Shore LS, LLC, a private company that shops for real estate in Park Point, a picturesque neighborhood along the 11-mile-long Lake Superior sandbar in Duluth, Minnesota.
She is the wife of billionaire James Cargill II, one of the heirs to the Wayzata, Minn.-based Cargill Corporation.
Cargill, America's largest privately held company, is a leading distributor of food and beauty products, including cocoa, soy and oils, and owns brands such as Purina pet food.
So far, North Shore has reportedly purchased 10 properties along Park Point in the last year, sometimes paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for home appraisals.
According to the Star Tribune in Duluth, North Shore: A total of approximately $2 million was spent Most of the 10 properties purchased were above estimated market value.
Local residents have no idea what Cargill is up to. But they are concerned about the changing atmosphere of the quaint lakeside community, as well as tax increases and tightening of an already tight housing market.
As 93-year-old Brooks Anderson told the Duluth News Tribune, his nightmare scenario is that Park Point becomes a “part-time playground for the rich.”
Cargill's bedside manner, or lack thereof, doesn't help.
“The houses we bought were junk,” she told the Duluth News Tribune about some of the homes that were quickly demolished. 100 years old. “I I couldn't imagine living In any of them. ”
Danny O'Neill, a longtime Park Point resident, was excited to see the price increase on his modest 1,500-square-foot home. North Shore paid him $825,000, but the house was appraised at $370,000.
“Christmas came early this year,” O'Neill told the Post.
On the other hand, the “stupid'' comments stung. “That was my home,” he said. “This is a detached house that was renovated from an old beach house. [remark] I felt sick. No doubt she is trying to justify destroying them. But let me give you a break. ”
Another local resident, Dave Poulin, told the Post: “Kathy Cargill needs a publicist. These are assets worth holding on to and living with. She said they are uninhabitable. They have not announced their intentions. , we can only speculate.”
Cargill did not respond to The Post's request for an interview or comment.
Local residents told the Post that Mr. Cargill had limited interaction with potential neighbors in a modest community where residents caught trout for dinner. The sandbank has Lake Superior on one side and the busy Duluth Harbor Basin on the other. — and help plant a community garden.
Cargill has reportedly offered to donate additional pavers to community gardens. However, she has not fully explained her intentions.
“I wish I had known what was going to happen,” Coral McDonnell, 83, who has lived in Park Point most of her life, told the Post. “They bought land next to our house and demolished three houses and two large garages.”
As McDonnell spoke, he noticed noisy work being done on nearby land purchased by North Shore.
“I don't know what they're doing,” she said. “It looks like there's a huge drill and it's digging into the ground.”
She also worries about changes in the landscape and the potential for erosion.
“They cut down a lot of trees, which is sad. We need trees to keep the sand. [on grounds along the lake] Don’t let it take a big hit,” McDonnell said. “I’m concerned about our community and our neighborhood.”
Cargill's husband was a descendant of WW Cargill and founded his eponymous company in 1865 with a single grain warehouse. Since then, the company has quickly grown into a $50 billion to $75 billion behemoth that handles food production and distribution, financial services and venture capital.
According to Forbes, the Cargill family the fourth richest family in the United States$47 billion was distributed among an estimated 23 relatives.
The Cargill family is mostly modest about their wealth, but Cargill is known for his love of McLaren hypercars, which sell for more than $1 million each and can reach speeds of more than 200 miles per hour.
In a video promoting her four-car collection, she described the McLaren as “drivable art.”
Park Point resident Tom Rauchenfel said he sees a car speeding by multiple times a day.
“I heard the engine and jumped in the truck and followed it,” Lauhenfel said. “You don't see many cars like that around here.
“She drove home. [the LLC] We already own it” — a lakefront spread that was purchased in 2021 for $2.5 million, Rauhenfel said. “They stripped it down to the bare studs and finished construction a few months ago. It's just a beautiful empty house.”
O'Neill is one of the few local residents who met with the Cargill family as they sold their home.
“When I first met Jim, he was wearing dirty black jeans and a dirty shirt,” O'Neill said of the agribusiness heir reported by Forbes magazine. worth $5 billion And at that time I was doing housework. “I had no idea he was a millionaire. We talked about fishing and lakes and lighthouses. It was a blue-collar conversation.”
He also talked to Kathy. “She says she wants to build a modest home for her grandson, who will attend the University of Minnesota Duluth and study environmental science.”
O'Neill speculated that the billionaire's modest idea might be an upgrade from the original structure.
There are concerns that North Shore's favorable pricing could result in higher Park Point taxes. Halala recalled attending “meetings with neighbors in the area who were worried about what would happen to their taxes.”
Poulin, who has already seen her taxes rise from $4,000 to $6,500, worries that the generous purchase price will only lead to more tax increases. On the positive side, these purchase prices are considered “outliers,” so it's unlikely to happen anytime soon.
Annie Halala, a county commissioner in St. Louis County, where Park Point is located, said some locals have become very skeptical about moving down the rankings.
“There's a sentiment in the neighborhood asking other neighbors not to sell to Cargill,” Halala told the Post, acknowledging that's a big ask. “Unless you're in the 1 percent, it's going to be hard not to sell. Our neighbors received life-changing money.”
After selling the house to an LLC, O'Neal moved to a new house not too far away., He credited his famous “Minnesota nice guy” attitude for keeping him in good stead.
“People are afraid that their property taxes will go up, and they're worried about what's going to happen to their neighbors,” he said of selling his home. “The neighbors probably weren't happy about it. But they didn't tell me.”