Mount Desert Island’s first yurt “glamping” site and wellness center, abutting Acadia National Park, has been listed for sale for roughly $2.2 million.
Acadia Yurts, located on Seal Cove Road in Southwest Harbor, has been on the market for about a year, according to co-owners Aaron Sprague and Karen Roper. The property offers tourists an outdoor experience that has grown in popularity over the past decade: “glamping,” a comfortable and luxurious form of camping. MDI now has more than a dozen glampgrounds.
The property sits across from White Birches Camp, an RV campground reserved for seasonal Acadia workers and funded by local nonprofit Friends of Acadia. The couple are selling it after operating their glamping resort for 11 years.
Although the glampground has spent a year on the market, the couple have not reduced the price because the “business continues to generate more revenue each year,” according to Sprague, who grew up in Trenton.
Dana Moos, the realtor who listed Acadia Yurts, said the timeframe has been typical for hospitality properties.
“I always tell my sellers it will be two to three years,” Moos said, clarifying that COVID has shortened that window to a year and a half. “Everybody has to remember that buying a business is discretionary. You’re not buying a home, you’re not renting a home.”
Roper said there’s been considerable interest in the property — the couple had two showings last week — but they’ve only received one offer, which was later rescinded.
“What people end up coming around to is that it’s a lot of work,” Roper said. “It’s not a passive business, we’re very hands-on, which is why 11 years of it has been tiresome for us. So a lot of people who have come through were hoping that it was more passive — they don’t realize that we do most of the jobs.”
The couple has one part-time cleaner and several contracted employees on payroll, Sprague said.
The 4.8-acre lot consists of seven yurts, two tiny homes and one wellness center, though — after receiving feedback from prospective buyers — the couple divided the property by their two separate businesses: rental stays and wellness services.
Potential buyers can purchase only the rental properties, seven yurts and two tiny homes, for $2,225,000, or can bundle the rentals with the wellness center for an additional $400,000, Roper said. The center could also be converted into an owner’s home, should the property’s next steward decide to live on-site.
If someone decides they only want to purchase the rentals, the couple, who were married at a “small COVID wedding” in the yoga studio, would continue to operate the wellness center, Sprague said.
Six of the glampground’s seven yurts, each of which has a full bathroom, modest kitchen and both heat and air conditioning, can sleep up to four people. The seventh fits up to six. Colorado Yurt Company manufactures the yurts in the United States, and a local contractor adds the unit’s kitchens, bathrooms and other amenities, according to the luxury campsite’s website. Each yurt is named after a mountain in Acadia.
The property also has two tiny homes, named Beehive and Precipice after popular park trails, that can accommodate up to two people.
All of the yurts and tiny homes are available for rent, with a three-night minimum, from May 1 through Oct. 31, though the wellness center operates year-round.
The yurts cost $270 per night and the tiny homes cost $250. The Norumbega Mountain Yurt, the largest of their fleet, is $325 per night. The rentals reach 97% occupancy each summer, Moos said.
The couple’s wellness center, opened in 2019, offers yoga classes, an infrared sauna, licensed massage therapy, leg compression therapy, Reiki and float therapy — a water tank heated to skin temperature and saturated with Epsom salt, designed to mimic a zero-gravity experience. The infrared sauna is fashioned with a television screen where patrons can watch Netflix, Sprague said, adding that a single session costs $25.
The glampground and wellness center, which serves visitors and locals, remains open while it’s listed on the market.