Locals nervous as Minnesota billionaire buys 10 ‘crap’ houses

A flashy, McLaren-driving member of America’s fourth-richest family is “worrying” neighbors and raising eyebrows after buying 10 of their homes and calling them “pieces of crap.”

Kathy Cargill is listed as manager of North Shore LS, LLC, a private entity that’s on a real-estate shopping spree in Park Point — a picturesque neighborhood along a seven-mile-long Lake Superior sandbar in Duluth, Minnesota.

She is the wife of billionaire James Cargill II, one of the heirs to Cargill, Inc., based in Wayzata, Minnesota.

The largest privately owned company in America, Cargill is a major seller of food and beauty products including cocoa, soy and oils and owns brands such as Purina pet food.

Thus far, it’s been reported, North Shore has bought 10 properties along Park Point over the last year — sometimes paying hundreds of thousands of dollars over home appraisals.

All told, according to the StarTribune in Duluth, North Shore spent a total of some $2 million above estimated market value prices for most of the 10 purchased properties.

Locals have no idea what Cargill is up to. But they fear a changing vibe in their quaint lakefront community, as well as jacked-up taxes and an increasingly tight housing market where there already is a crunch.

As 93-year-old Brooks Anderson told the Duluth News Tribune, his nightmare scenario is Park Point becoming a “part-time playground for rich folks.”

Cargill’s bedside manner, or lack thereof, doesn’t help.

“The homes that we bought were pieces of crap,” she told the Duluth News Tribune about promptly demolishing several of the homes, some of which were around 100 years old. “I couldn’t imagine living in any of them.”

Danny O’Neil, a longtime resident of Park Point, was thrilled with the markup he received on his modest, 1,500-square-foot house: North Shore paid him $825,000, while the home was appraised at $370,000.

“Christmas came early this year,” O’Neil told The Post.

On the other hand, the “crap” comment stung. “That was my house,” he said. “It’s a family home that is an old beach house. That [remark] made me feel bad. No doubt, she is trying to justify tearing them down. But give me a break.”

Another local, Dave Poulin, told The Post: “Kathy Cargill needs a public relations person. These are properties worth hanging onto and living with. She said they’re unlivable. They have not announced their intention and we can only speculate.”

Cargill did not return The Post’s request for an interview or comment.

Locals told The Post that Cargill has had limited interaction with people who might be her neighbors in a modest community where residents catch trout for dinner — Lake Superior is on one side of the sandbar and bustling Duluth Harbor Basin on the other — and help plant the community garden.

It’s been reported that Cargill offered to donate extra pavers to the community garden. But she hasn’t completely explained her intentions.

“We wish we knew what was going to happen,” Coral McDonnel, 83, who’s spent most of her life in Park Point, told The Post. “They purchased lots next to our house, and they tore down three houses and two big garages.”

As she spoke, McDonnel noted the noisy work happening at a nearby property purchased by North Shore.

“I don’t know what they’re doing,” she said. “There is a huge drill and it looks like they are drilling into the ground.”

She’s also worried about the changing landscape and possible erosion.

“They tore down a lot of trees, and that is sad. We need the trees to keep sand [on grounds along the lake] from coming up in big blows,” McDonnel said. “I feel worried about our community and neighborhood.”

Cargill’s husband is a descendant of W.W. Cargill, who launched his eponymous company in 1865 with a single grain warehouse. It’s since mushroomed into a $50- to $75-billion goliath, dealing in food production and distribution, as well as financial services and venture capital.

According to Forbes, the Cargills are the fourth-richest family in the US, with $47 billion split among an estimated 23 relatives.

While the family is mostly low-key about its wealth, Cargill is known for her love of McLaren hypercars, which can sell for more than $1 million each and notch speeds of over 200 miles per hour.

In a video touting her four-car collection, she described her McLarens as “drivable art.”

Tom Rauchenfel, a Park Point resident, has witnessed one of the cars zip by multiple times in a day.

“I heard the line of the engine, jumped into my truck and followed it,” Rauchenfel said. “We don’t see many of those cars around here.

“She drove to the home that [the LLC] already owned” — a lakefront spread that was purchased in 2021 for $2.5 million, Rauchenfel said. “They stripped it down to the bare studs and finished construction a few months ago. It is just a beautiful, empty house.”

O’Neil is one of the few area residents who has met the Cargills as he sold them his home.

“The first time I met Jim, he had on a pair of black jeans that were dirty and a dirty shirt,” O’Neil said of the agribusiness heir who is said by Forbes to be worth $5 billion and was doing some housework at the time. “I would not have guessed he was a billionaire. We talked about fishing and the lake and the lighthouses. It was a blue-collar conversation.”

He chatted with Kathy as well: “She said she wants to build a modest house for her grandson who is going to University of Minnesota Duluth and taking up environmental science.”

O’Neil speculated that a billionaire’s idea of modest would be an upgrade from the original structure.

There is concern that North Shore’s favorable pricing will increase taxes in Park Point. Harala recalled being at a “meeting with concerned neighbors in the area wondering what will happen with the taxes.”

Poulin – who has already seen his taxes go from $4,000 to $6,500 – fears that the generous purchase prices will only contribute to continued hikes. On the upside, that is unlikely to happen immediately, as these purchase prices are considered “outliers.”

Annie Harala, the county commissioner for St. Louis County, in which Park Point is located, said some locals have grown so skeptical they are closing ranks.

“There are sentiments of neighbors asking other neighbors not to sell to Cargill,” Harala told The Post, admitting that it’s a big ask. “Unless you are part of the one percent, you would be hard-pressed not to sell. Neighbors have received money that has been life-changing.”

O’Neil, who moved to a new home not too far away after selling his to the LLC, admitted that the famous “Minnesota nice” attitude has kept him in good standing.

“People are fearful that their property taxes will go up and wonder what their next-door neighbor will look like,” he said of selling his home. “My neighbors were probably not okay with it. But they wouldn’t tell me.”