Former Amish Acres Sold For $2.5 Million in “Bidding War”; Auctioneer Hints At Its Future Use

The Barns at Nappanee (formerly Amish Acres) was sold last week at auction – for the second time in five years. Via the Goshen News:

NAPPANEE — The former Amish Acres property, later known as The Barns at Nappanee, has been sold.

An auction for the property, which includes 10 buildings across 54,000 square feet of space on the west edge of Nappanee, ended at 6 p.m. Wednesday, with the winning bid being $2,547,300. The auction firm of Kraft Auction Service, Valparaiso, was the coordinator of the auction, and the news of the sale broke late Wednesday night.

According to Jonathan Kraft, the auction conclusion came down to a “bidding war that saw 43 bids placed on the property.”

With 43 bids, it sounds like there was a lot of interest. Perhaps that represents the efforts of a healthy handful of bidders, or perhaps most of those bids came from just a pair going head-to-head.

No matter; as before I wonder what the winning bidder has in mind for this historic place, which for over 50 years was an Amish-themed family-oriented destination popular through the generations.

As for the future of the property, not much is known, but Jonathan Kraft of the auction company had this interesting comment:

“More details about the new owner will be released by the new owner shortly, and what the future looks like for the property,” Kraft said. “But I can say the buyer is going to re-open the property and build on the successful history of the property.”

“Build on the successful history of the property” can be interpreted in different ways – but the bulk of the property’s history was as a more Amish-themed destination under the Amish Acres brand.

The five most recent years as the Barns at Nappanee saw the property downplay that element in favor of other facets of the attraction, as I detailed in this post. It will be interesting to see what the new owners plan to do with it.