After property owner's death — and battle over his will — Eagan green space will be preserved

A rare expanse of undeveloped land in Eagan — recently the subject of a legal battle involving multiple wills — will be preserved as farmland and wildlife habitat and overseen by a board of conservation-minded local residents.

The three parcels of land — 134 acres in all — were owned by Patrick McCarthy until he died in April 2023. The land, a mix of farmland, wetlands, lakes and woods, had been in the McCarthy family since the 1850s when James McCarthy immigrated to Minnesota from County Cork, Ireland.

The property, located west of Lexington Avenue and bisected by Wescott Road, is among the last few large green spaces in Eagan and is worth more than $10 million. After McCarthy's death, its future stewardship was unclear, with both a McCarthy family member and a friend claiming McCarthy had left them the land to preserve.

In the fall, a judge ruled in favor of Lee Markell, a landscape architect, land protection specialist and friend of McCarthy's. Now, Markell is overseeing the work to ensure the land remains undeveloped, as McCarthy intended.

"He told me what he would like to see happen with that land," Markell said of McCarthy, whose will directed his estate to be placed in an organization called "McCarthy Family Habitat Forever." "He didn't want to make any drastic moves until after he was gone."

Now, decisions about how to preserve the land will be made by a newly formed six-member board, which plans to meet again next week.

Members are talking with real estate attorneys and trying to decide the best way to oversee Patrick McCarthy's wishes, Markell said.

The land will most likely be protected by a conservation easement, Markell said. McCarthy had already donated 29 of the 134 acres to the county as a conservation easement in 2004.

"It's my understanding that the only way to legally see that land preserved is to get it into a conservation easement," Markell said. "The conservation easement wouldn't let any development occur, residential or commercial."

Ryan Stanton, who once acted as McCarthy's power of attorney and is now president of the new board, said fulfilling McCarthy's wishes for the land was "an honor and a labor of love."

McCarthy's wishes

The court's decision — and the board's formation — ostensibly ends the legal debate over what would happen with the land.

At issue had been which of multiple wills presented to the court was the legally binding version.

Jodi McCarthy, a cousin of Patrick McCarthy's who grew up visiting her grandparents every weekend on the McCarthy property as a child, argued in court that Patrick McCarthy intended to keep the land in the family by leaving it to her.

He gave her a copy of his will, which had a blank space after the place where the estate's beneficiary was supposed to be listed. The will was designed so that whoever agreed to preserve the land would be the beneficiary, she said.

That person was supposed to be her, Jodi McCarthy said.

She had planned to keep the land natural, too, but had plans for a campground, community gardens, an observation tower and an area for historical re-enactments.

But a judge ultimately sided with Markell, who was working for Dakota County, monitoring the county's conservation easements as a contractor, when he met Patrick McCarthy in 2016.

After several years, Markell said he earned McCarthy's trust and the two talked about McCarthy's long-term wishes for his land. The judge ultimately concluded that the will presented by Markell was the only one that was complete and was witnessed by two individuals.

Jodi McCarthy, who called the legal process exhausting and heartbreaking, disputes that decision. She said she still may sue the county or Markell, adding that she's willing to go to jail to expose the American justice system as "corrupt."

For now, though, the board's preservation work continues.

Markell recalled McCarthy as an "interesting eccentric" and a private, practical man with a good sense of humor. He "had a memory like a trap" and enjoyed fixing equipment, like tractors, instead of replacing it with something new, Markell said.

Most of all, he loved his land and wanted it preserved for perpetuity.

"We'd like to keep doing stuff as if Pat was still here," Markell said.