Court Merrigan’s journey to Marblehead was a winding one. After spending a decade living in Japan and Thailand before returning to his family’s farm on the Nebraska-Wyoming border (lovingly referred to by Merrigan as “Wyo-braska”), the agricultural real estate broker came out east in search of new adventures.
You may have even read his many “My Marblehead first time” columns in the Current, where he describes the town through a newcomer’s eyes.
“I had been to Boston one time in my life before I came out here in a moving truck,” said Merrigan. “I thought, ‘well look, there’s real estate. I can do that.’ For instance, I’m selling a cranberry bog on the south shore. I sell farms, ranches, big tracts of land, wherever they may be.”
And while every tract he represents may be “one-of-a-kind,” his most recent listing is something truly extraordinary.
Centered about 100 miles southeast of the ultra-exclusive ski resorts of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, lies the Midland Ranch, a 1.15 million acre tract stretching from the Wind River range in the north to the Red Desert in the south. To put the ranch’s scale in perspective, Rhode Island could fit within the tract almost twice over.
Having been under the stewardship of the French Basque Arambel family for over 120 years, the land has gone viral for its natural beauty and sheer immensity.
“I’ve never had anything like this happen in my life,” said Merrigan. “There were a couple of (news) articles on it. It was in the Washington Post and a couple of magazines out west. And then the marketing people put a video on TikTok and it got a million views.”
The overnight interest in the ranch was also spurred on by its price tag. In order to take ownership of one of North America’s most impressive tracts, prospective buyers are prepared to spend over $22 million.
However, the eight figure asking price can be considered a bargain when one understands the importance of the work that is done on the ranch.
Functioning primarily as a sheep and cattle ranch, the Arambels engage in the practice of transhumance, migrating their herds to-and-from the mountains based on the seasons.
“This practice is very old,” said Merrigan. “It’s probably the original way that we herded animals. This family has French Basque roots. That’s where they got this practice from and they still do it.”
Beyond driving their massive herds of livestock, the ranchers act as stewards of the land upon which they live and work. The ranch is directly in the path of major animal migration routes and is the home to the largest concentration of greater sage grouses in the world.
“They work in harmony with the species that are there,” said Merrigan. “With all those species come predators, too: wolves, cougars, coyotes. All those species are in abundance. It’s all one ecological system that works together and they’re very much a part of it.”
Outside of the once in a lifetime opportunity granted by his work on the Midland Ranch, Merrigan has had the ability to experience a vast range of American lives first hand. From working as a farmhand in Nebraska to a real estate broker in Boston, he sees that there is more that unites us across geographic, social and political divides than what drives us apart.
“I just feel very thankful, blessed, frankly, that I get to operate in both worlds,” said Merrigan. “I get to be out in the middle of nowhere in the mountains and I could be in Marblehead, which is one of the most remarkable towns in the United States. I feel like I’m having a pretty fortunate ride.”
