The family of a late Dial soap executive has sold 27 acres in Paradise Valley, Arizona’s wealthiest enclave, for $42 million, taking a lower offer to make sure fewer homes are built.
The family of former Dial CEO John Teets Jr. and his wife, Nancy, sold the land on 54th Street in the exclusive town north of Scottsdale, AZCentral reported. The buyer was a Delaware-based limited liability company dubbed PV27.
The price came out to $1.56 million per acre.
The Teets couple bought the land 30 years ago for $6 million, or $222,222 per acre, to protect their mountain views. It’s the largest piece of undeveloped land in Paradise Valley, which requires homes be built on acre lots or larger.
But the Teets insisted on a recorded restrictive covenant that requires 1.8-acre minimum lot sizes, where zoning otherwise would have permitted 1-acre lots, according to the family’s attorney.
Bigger parcels or undivided land is possible.
The property had been listed for $55 million, but the family ignored higher bids because it said it was important for the owners to be good stewards of the property and preserve more of it, Joan Levinson of Realty ONE Group, the agent who held the listing, told AZCentral.
The Teets family said in a statement it was “foregoing much higher offers from buyers who would have subdivided the parcel into one-acre lots, and instead held out for a buyer who would agree to lower-density future development.”
It’s not clear what the buyer intends to do with the property. The purchase agreement says the new owner will not do any site work for at least a year, or conduct any above-ground construction for at least two years.
The land is near Paradise Valley Country Club and has views of Mummy Mountain and the Phoenix Mountains Preserve.
“The owners wanted a buyer that will build something to make the neighborhood and Paradise Valley proud,” Levinson told the news site run by the Arizona Republic.
She said the land sale was the highest price ever recorded on the multiple listing service in greater Phoenix.
In May last year, an 18,500-square-foot mansion in Paradise Valley sold for an area-record $23.5 million. The previous record for a residential sale in Paradise Valley was $21 million, set in 2022.
John Teets led the Dial and Greyhound corporations in the 1980s and 1990s. He died in 2011.
— Dana Bartholomew
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