It appears that Doug Stephan, owner of Eastleigh Farm – has purchased the former Fafard estate at 1060, 1062, and 1062a Grove Street. He obtained a mortgage for just over $5,500,000 under a business name, 1060 Grove Street LLC, on August 24th, 2022. The full purchase price for the estate was $9,900,000. At the three addresses above, there is approximately 23 acres of farm or pasture land, and two massive buildings.
Set back from Grove Street itself, the properties at 1020 Grove Street, 40 Winch Street RR, and 40 Winch Street – were all included in the sale. These properties contain approximately 27 acres of developable, but currently undeveloped – residential land. The land currently is mostly pastures, brooks, small ponds, and forest.
In all – the LLC has acquired approximately 50 acres.
Howard Fafard – a local real estate magnate died at 79 in Janurary 2021. Fafard and Stephan were 40+ year friends.
The mortgage documents list the LLC which now own the properties as having a primary business address matching Doug Stephen’s home address.
1060 Grove Street LLC was formed as an entity on August 4th, just weeks before the sale of the property. Doug Stephan, Matt McGovern of Newton, and Greg Cohen of Needham are the managers listed as the owners of the LLC.
McGovern is the president of the McGovern Automotive Group. The McGovern group contains 20 auto dealerships and boasts over a billion in annual sales.
Gregory Cohen is the president of Coda Development – a major luxury housing developer, which claims to have developed over 200,000 square feet of residential housing including Beacon Hill brownstones and historic properties in Newton, Cambridge, and Wellesley.
Lets look at the properties already built on the land.
1060 Grove contains just over 16 acres and contains the former Fafard house, a 7000 sq ft, 7 bed, 7 bath, and 3 half-bath house.
1062 and 1062a Grove contains another house of nearly 7000 sq ft, containing 5 beds, and three baths. These two properties sit on nearly 7 acres.
The properties in question are located near the Callahan park and just north of the highly contested Millwood Preserve development which was fought and even litigated against by local residents who didn’t want any mega housing developments on the north side.
On the Fafard property located 40 Winch Street, a second egress exists, extending the property to Winch Street, which is due south from the red mark in the map above. It’s just by the Sudbury valley school. Fafard became owner of this lot in the last 10-15 years specifically to give his property a second egress. It appears the Fafard had cleared some of it out, and it looks like the beginning stage of a road has been completed.
This possible road or egress point is located at 40 Winch Street. It is described by the city assessors as 2.025 acres of developable residential land. This lot is shown in blue below. The yellow outline reflects the full 50 acres purchased.
The housing portion of the Millwood Preserve covers approximately 32 acres as presently built and consists of nearly 130 units.
We have no idea what Stephan and his partners have planned, however if what is constructed is as dense as Millwood is, 205 units could be constructed. Based on what Coda Development boasts, we believe this would be more of a Macomber Estates setup, with homes further distanced, but each fetching millions. If homes are constructed on parcels just under an acre each, we estimate 50 homes could easily be located here.
At a million plus a pop – this ten-million-dollar investment could be a fifty-or-more-million-dollar windfall for the parties involved.
We will continue to follow and report on this mind blowing development.
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