Emily Vanderbilt Wade Buys 4000-Acre Georgia Property for $22M

Emily Vanderbilt Wade bought a Thomasville Property in Georgia for $22M, reports The Wall Street Journal. 

Although it cost her $22M, the 4000-acre property was not actually priced as such. In fact, it had no asking price, according to co-listing agent Jon Kohler of Jon Kohler & Associates. Kohler even stated, "It's hard to value something like that." he said.

Wade's newly-acquired property is part of the Greenwood quail-hunting plantation. The plantation was a longtime estate of the late John Hay Whitney and his wife, Betsey Cushing Whitney. The late John Whitney was the owner of the New York Herald Tribune and a former U.S. ambassador to Britain, notes The Wall Street Journal.

The Greenwood plantation had been in Mr. Whitney's family in the lattermost part of the 19th century. Greenwood was the center of a cotton plantation around 1835 to 1840. It was acquired by Col. Oliver Hazard Payne, as a hunting estate in 1889. Col. Payne then passed it on to one of his descendants, John Hay Whitney, who had the house for nearly a century.

Having an owner who was a U.S. Ambassador, the plantation had welcomed several prominent dignitaries in those times. In the 1950s, President Eisenhower visited as a hunting trip guest. In 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy spent a week in seclusion there after her husband, President Kennedy, was assasinated, as stated in an academic paper.

Included in the 4000-acre property was the Big Woods, a big portion of an old forest, a horse barn, and seven tenant houses built in late 19th centry to early 20th century, notes Biz Journal.

Although it was listed several years ago, it is only now that it had found its rightful owner. With her noble intention in protecting the land, Ms. Emily Wade and her family created a nonprofit org, the Greenwood Research Foundation, to buy and manage the property. Ms. Wade aslo likes to promote research on longleaf yellow pine forests, according to The Wall Street Journal.

This is just one of the acts of nobleness from Ms. Emily Wade. Apart from being active in environment conservation, she is also a strong advocate of education, in the disciplines of science, in particular, as noted in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT alumni board website.

According to MIT, when Wade learned that the undergraduate enrollment in science and technology was falling, she expressed her willingness to inspire these children. 

She firmly believes that young people should be nurtured with these subjects from the start, saying "If you don't start engaging students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics by the first grade, they won't be interested in these subjects when they get older."