Billionaire Paul Allen finally sold his private island in the San Juans for $8 million. Allan Island, named for a Navy hero and not its former owner, has been on and off the market for nine years, and now has been sold for a third of its original listing price in 2005. Microsoft co-founder purchased the 292 acres property – one of Washington’s San Juan Islands in 1992 with the intention of building a vacation home there. However, Allen abandoned his plan after bought a 387-acre Sperry Peninsula site on the nearby Lopez Island in 1996. It was listed in 2005 for $25 million and slashed to $13.5 million in 2009.
The island is southwest of Anacortes and west of Burrows Bay, and is accessible only by private plane, boat or float plane. It features a “log-style home for caretakers quarters” and is made up of 44 tax lots. Besides its vacation compound potential, the property boasts sweeping views that include the Rosario Strait, the Olympic Mountains and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Allen wanted to ensure that the buyers would maintain the essential natural integrity of the mostly undeveloped property.
“It was important to the seller what the buyer was going to do to the island,” the selling agent Wally Gudgell of Windmere Real Estate said . “We had some pretty wild buyers looking at it.”
The buyer reportedly plans on building 10 to 12 homes on the 292 acre island.
