Filmmaker and actor M. Night Shyamalan came up with a happy ending for conservationists in Pennsylvania, where he was raised and resides when he purchased a large country estate and saved it from development.
Known for his scary movies that include "The Sixth Sense" and “Knock at the Cabin,” Shyamalan paid $24 million last month to buy Kirkwood Farm, a 200-plus-acre historic property, from descendants of the Rockefeller family of oil-industry barons.
The farm — which has pastures, several buildings including two barns, a stream and a pond — is in Willistown and hadn't been on the market for more than 90 years, according to real estate broker Compass. The Willistown Conservation Trust had been working to have the picturesque property, habitat to a variety of wildlife species, kept as open space and not be subdivided and developed. The farm was bought by a limited corporation, but several local media outlets identified Shyamalan as the true buyer.
And he wants the rolling estate to stay as is.
"Both sellers and buyers were of the same mind in that they wanted to preserve the property and that it would not be developed," Kim Whetzel, an agent with Kurfiss Sotheby's International Realty who represented the buyer, said in an email. "The outcome was ideal for all involved, i.e. buyers, sellers, surrounding communities, township and conservation organizations."
Whetzel said she got to meet Shyamalan during the process and said he is a “wonderful person."