A winery in Santa Clara County is poised to be transformed into a cemetery.
Michael and Kellie Ballard have sold the Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards property outside Saratoga to the Saratoga Cemetery District for $20 million, The Mercury News reported. In April, the district purchased a house next to the 12.5-acre Madronia Cemetery for $4.5 million, pointing to a forthcoming expansion.
The Savannah-Chanelle property at 23600 Congress Springs Road was once listed for $27.5 million, per The Mercury News. The property spans five parcels and 57.9 acres.
The cemetery district has been eyeing an expansion in the area, according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal.
“This is the one we’ve always wanted,” Steve Albright, general manager of Madronia Cemetery, told the Business Journal about the vineyard purchase. “We’ve been working on this one for about a year.”
About 80 percent of the money spent on the vineyard came from debt, according to Albright. The Saratoga Cemetery District will pay off the debt over the next 20 years as it prepares to turn the Savannah-Chanelle land into another cemetery for Saratoga residents.
In the meantime, the Cemetery District is leasing the property to Savannah-Chanelle, meaning the winery will continue to operate there for at least the next 10 years before the cemetery redevelops the land. In the lead-up to that change, the Cemetery District will work to rezone the property.
Last year, the Ballards sued Santa Clara County after being fined more than $120,000 for allowing their vineyard manager and his family to live on the property in a recreational vehicle for more than a decade. The lawsuit is ongoing, according to the East Bay Times.
The couple bought the winery in 1996 from Victor Erickson and renamed it Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards after their two daughters. The property’s history dates back more than a century when brothers Pierre and Eloi Pourroy planted vineyards at the site in 1901. In 1923, the brothers completed construction of a villa that is still standing today and is used by the Ballards as a vacation home. — Chris Malone Méndez
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