Billionaire Bill Koch Lists Cape Home for $24M

Bill Koch is looking for a buyer to take an expensive Cape Cod retreat off his hands.

The billionaire listed his property at 17 Indian Trail in the community of Osterville, Massachusetts, for $23.9 million, the Wall Street Journal reported. It would be a tidy profit from the $19.5 million Koch spent to purchase the property in 2013 from famed gardener Bunny Mellon, though Koch’s accumulated costs since then.

The main residence includes eight bedrooms across a seven-and-a-half-acre stretch; the full Mellon lot spanned 26 acres at the time Koch purchased it. The estate has a pair of two-bedroom cottages, a beach house, an artist’s studio and a greenhouse.

A year after buying from Mellon, Koch also purchased the adjacent 10-acre estate from the du Pont family for an undisclosed sum and used it as his primary residence on the Cape; the former Mellon home was for guests and family.

“It is time for someone else to enjoy this marvelous property,” the billionaire told the Journal. The home was in the Mellon family for nearly six decades — from 1954 until the year before Bunny’s death.

Koch has been renting out the pad for $25,000 per week. Zenas Crocker and Kelly Crosby of LandVest, an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate, have the listing.

It’s not the only plot of land in Cape Cod that Koch is ready to trade, even as he hangs on to his primary residence in the vacation hub.

Two years ago, the Oxbow Carbon founder listed 11 acres of vacant land — part of the former Mellon estate — for a combined $16 million, though pieces were available individually for between $3 million and $3.5 million. He’s also looking to sell a two-acre parcel with a house and a dock for $10.5 million.

Koch owns additional property in Palm Beach and a ranch in Paonia, Colorado. A few months ago, he listed his 16,600-square-foot log mansion in Aspen for $125 million, which could result in a state record for most expensive sale if it comes anywhere close to hitting that price.

— Holden Walter-Warner