It Was a Three-Bedroom Colonial. Now, This Rural Massachusetts Property Feels Like ‘Disneyland.’

Built by the late founder of Yankee Candle Co., a 60-acre portion of the estate—with an indoor water park, an arcade and two car barns—is hitting the market for $23 million

As a baby, Michael “Mick” Kittredge III lived in what he recalls as a traditional house in western Central Massachusetts: a three-bedroom Colonial that his parents bought for $144,000 in 1984.

But by the time he was 10, Mr. Kittredge said his father—Michael J. Kittredge II, the founder of Yankee Candle Co., who died in 2019—had converted the inconspicuous property into a veritable Magic Kingdom in the small rural town of Leverett, population under 2,000. In the span of several years, the elder Mr. Kittredge had scooped up enough neighbouring properties to create an estate of more than 100 acres, some spilling over the border into Amherst. Today, the property features, among other outsized amenities, a water park, an arcade, tennis courts, a concert hall and places for guests to stay.

“It was like having Disneyland in the backyard,” said Mick Kittredge, now 32, who co-founded Kringle Candle Co. with his father in 2009. “When I was young, it was pretty much just a regular house.”

Now, a nearly 60-acre portion of the estate is coming onto the market for $23 million, said listing agent Johnny Hatem Jr. of Douglas Elliman. The gated property has a roughly 25,000-square-foot main house, two 4,000-square-foot guesthouses, two car barns, a clubhouse, an outdoor pool and a pool cabana with a full kitchen and bar. The arcade and water park are inside a separate 55,000-square-foot, two-story building, Mr. Hatem said.

A roughly 10-acre parcel with an 8,500-square-foot home and a guesthouse is listed separately for $3.99 million. An additional parcel, with an apple orchard, is also being sold separately. “This place is just too big for one,” said Mr. Kittredge.

On a recent August afternoon, Mick Kittredge navigated an Indian motorcycle around the property’s winding paths and gardens, which connect the main house to the outbuildings.

The late Mr. Kittredge founded Yankee Candle as a teenager in the 1960s after making his mother a candle out of melted crayons because he was too poor to buy her a gift. He parlayed the hobby into a business and sold 90% of Yankee Candle in 1998 for about $500 million.

By then, the estate was well under way.

Located about 90 miles from Boston, Leverett is a middle-class town known for its proximity to Amherst and nearby colleges, including Smith College and Mount Holyoke College, as well as Deerfield Academy. The median list price for a single-family home was $650,000 in July 2022, according to Realtor.com. (News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, also operates Realtor.com under license from the National Association of Realtors.)

Mick Kittredge said the location was a natural choice for his dad, who grew up about 15 miles away in South Hadley. Leverett is also about 12 miles from Yankee Candle’s main factory and original retail store in South Deerfield.

After purchasing the original home on 1.84 acres, Mr. Kittredge snapped up adjacent land as it became available, records show. Mick Kittredge estimated his father invested $50 million in both the land acquisitions and the multiple renovations over the years.

“It was like a never-ending construction site,” he said, adding that his father didn’t have a master plan but designed the property for entertaining and enjoyment. “He was a dreamer and visionary, and built it along the way.”

The renovated main residence, completed in 2010, has six bedrooms, 11 fireplaces and a three-story great room. There is a huge kitchen with five islands for food prep and seven sinks, as well as a separate commercial kitchen on a lower level. There are also four dining rooms, a 10-seat theatre and two wine cellars.

The outbuildings reflect the late Mr. Kittredge’s passion for cars, tennis and music. He built two car barns that can hold a combined 80 vehicles. One also has a mechanic’s bay with a lift and space for washing and detailing, as well as a pool table and bar. The property has four tennis courts—two clay courts, an artificial-grass court and an indoor court. The late Mr. Kittredge, who played guitar, drums and piano, also had a large guitar collection and built a recording studio in his main home.

In the late 1990s, he commissioned what he called a spa building: a 55,000-square-foot structure centred on various activities. It has a 4,000-square-foot gym and massage treatment rooms, a three-lane bowling alley, the indoor tennis court, an arcade, a billiard room and the indoor water park.

The building’s large flex space can be converted into a concert hall with a 4,000-square-foot stage and a 25-foot oak bar. “The dance floor goes out, the tables go down and the lights go up,” Mick Kittredge said. “It’s a wild transformation.”

Mick Kittredge said his father gave the builder 12 months to complete the project so that it would be done in time for his third wedding, which took place at the estate in 1999. (Mr. Kittredge’s three marriages ended in divorce.)

Mick Kittredge said his dad had a flair for theatrics, and happily indulged his son’s interests on holidays and birthdays. He had a Santa—often a Yankee Candle store employee—pretend to slide down the chimney at Christmastime, and when Mick Kittredge was going through a Batman phase, his father built him an underground batcave. “He just tried hard to keep that childhood wonder alive for me,” he said.

For a birthday party, the elder Mr. Kittredge had a family friend dress up as Batman and perform choreographed fight scenes. Batman showed up in a batmobile that Mr. Kittredge owned that had been used in one of the Warner Bros. movies, Mr. Kittredge recalled. “I thought Batman was as real as Santa was to any other kid,” he said.

Christmas dinners regularly included 400 guests, he added, and there were numerous fundraisers, galas and live-music performances by the Doobie Brothers, KC and the Sunshine Band and others.

The estate was always busy, but his father designed for his family a private space in the main house with a primary bedroom, sitting area, kitchenette and two additional bedrooms. It was a retreat Mr. Kittredge said his father shared with his third wife and their two daughters.

“My dad built this place for his family, because he was very poor growing up,” he added. “He really wanted to be able to give his kids and his family a lifestyle he never dreamed of having.”

He said his father kept adding and renovating until 2012, when he suffered a stroke that impaired his speech and mobility.

A few years ago, Mr. Kittredge said, his father sold off a parcel where he had a small farm and grew his own vegetables and raised pigs, chickens and cows.

Mr. Hatem said the price of the main estate on the market reflects its location in a remote part of the state. He said he could see the property appealing to a car enthusiast or business executive, or even used for corporate retreats. “It’s an estate for hosting,” he said.

The marketplace has spoken and, at least for now, it’s showing preference for hybrids and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) over battery electrics. That makes Toyota’s foot dragging on EVs (and full speed ahead on hybrids) look fairly wise, though the timeline along a bumpy road still gets us to full electrification by 2035.

Italian supercar producer Lamborghini, in business since 1963, is also proceeding, incrementally, toward battery power. In an interview, Federico Foschini , Lamborghini’s chief global marketing and sales officer, talked about the new Urus SE plug-in hybrid the company showed at its lounge in New York on Monday.

The Urus SE interior gets a larger centre screen and other updates.
Lamborghini

The Urus SE SUV will sell for US$258,000 in the U.S. (the company’s biggest market) when it goes on sale internationally in the first quarter of 2025, Foschini says.

“We’re using the contribution from the electric motor and battery to not only lower emissions but also to boost performance,” he says. “Next year, all three of our models [the others are the Revuelto, a PHEV from launch, and the continuation of the Huracán] will be available as PHEVs.”

The Euro-spec Urus SE will have a stated 37 miles of electric-only range, thanks to a 192-horsepower electric motor and a 25.9-kilowatt-hour battery, but that distance will probably be less in stricter U.S. federal testing. In electric mode, the SE can reach 81 miles per hour. With the 4-litre 620-horsepower twin-turbo V8 engine engaged, the picture is quite different. With 789 horsepower and 701 pound-feet of torque on tap, the SE—as big as it is—can reach 62 mph in 3.4 seconds and attain 193 mph. It’s marginally faster than the Urus S, but also slightly under the cutting-edge Urus Performante model. Lamborghini says the SE reduces emissions by 80% compared to a standard Urus.

Lamborghini’s Urus plans are a little complicated. The company’s order books are full through 2025, but after that it plans to ditch the S and Performante models and produce only the SE. That’s only for a year, however, because the all-electric Urus should arrive by 2029.

Lamborghini’s Federico Foschini with the Urus SE in New York.
Lamborghini

Thanks to the electric motor, the Urus SE offers all-wheel drive. The motor is situated inside the eight-speed automatic transmission, and it acts as a booster for the V8 but it can also drive the wheels on its own. The electric torque-vectoring system distributes power to the wheels that need it for improved cornering. The Urus SE has six driving modes, with variations that give a total of 11 performance options. There are carbon ceramic brakes front and rear.

To distinguish it, the Urus SE gets a new “floating” hood design and a new grille, headlights with matrix LED technology and a new lighting signature, and a redesigned bumper. There are more than 100 bodywork styling options, and 47 interior color combinations, with four embroidery types. The rear liftgate has also been restyled, with lights that connect the tail light clusters. The rear diffuser was redesigned to give 35% more downforce (compared to the Urus S) and keep the car on the road.

The Urus represents about 60% of U.S. Lamborghini sales, Foschini says, and in the early years 80% of buyers were new to the brand. Now it’s down to 70%because, as Foschini says, some happy Urus owners have upgraded to the Performante model. Lamborghini sold 3,000 cars last year in the U.S., where it has 44 dealers. Global sales were 10,112, the first time the marque went into five figures.

The average Urus buyer is 45 years old, though it’s 10 years younger in China and 10 years older in Japan. Only 10% are women, though that percentage is increasing.

“The customer base is widening, thanks to the broad appeal of the Urus—it’s a very usable car,” Foschini says. “The new buyers are successful in business, appreciate the technology, the performance, the unconventional design, and the fun-to-drive nature of the Urus.”

Maserati has two SUVs in its lineup, the Levante and the smaller Grecale. But Foschini says Lamborghini has no such plans. “A smaller SUV is not consistent with the positioning of our brand,” he says. “It’s not what we need in our portfolio now.”

It’s unclear exactly when Lamborghini will become an all-battery-electric brand. Foschini says that the Italian automaker is working with Volkswagen Group partner Porsche on e-fuel, synthetic and renewably made gasoline that could presumably extend the brand’s internal-combustion identity. But now, e-fuel is very expensive to make as it relies on wind power and captured carbon dioxide.

During Monterey Car Week in 2023, Lamborghini showed the Lanzador , a 2+2 electric concept car with high ground clearance that is headed for production. “This is the right electric vehicle for us,” Foschini says. “And the production version will look better than the concept.” The Lanzador, Lamborghini’s fourth model, should arrive in 2028.