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Ida Huddleston has lived on the same stretch of farmland outside Maysville, Ky., since she was 16. She and her late husband built a log home there, raised children, and worked the soil through six decades of marriage. Today, the family owns roughly 1,200 acres, and multiple generations still live on it.
Last spring, an unnamed company described only as a major artificial intelligence firm came looking for a piece of it, according to WKRC Local 12. The company approached dozens of landowners in Mason County about buying roughly half of the Huddleston family's property for a proposed data center campus.
Huddleston, 82, was offered about $60,000 an acre for her 71 acres, over $4 million. Her daughter, Delsia Bare, 54, was offered $48,000 an acre for her 463 acres, putting her potential payout above $22 million. Combined, the family's offer topped $26 million, well above the roughly $6,000-an-acre going rate for farmland in the county.
Bare admits she signed a contract to sell, briefly. Fear was part of it, she said, namely worries over what might happen if the company invoked eminent domain and pressure from developers who wouldn't identify themselves. But the deal didn't sit right, and she and her mother pulled out, Bare told People in an exclusive interview.
"Money couldn't move what all I've got put in place here," Huddleston told People. "So I just might as well stay and fight it out right where I'm at."
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Now she is going to have a Data Center right next door to the farm. It kind of reminds me of a public mens bathroom where you got like 10 urinals there all open but the guy walking in comes right next to you.
Last spring, an unnamed company described only as a major artificial intelligence firm came looking for a piece of it, according to WKRC Local 12. The company approached dozens of landowners in Mason County about buying roughly half of the Huddleston family's property for a proposed data center campus.
Huddleston, 82, was offered about $60,000 an acre for her 71 acres, over $4 million. Her daughter, Delsia Bare, 54, was offered $48,000 an acre for her 463 acres, putting her potential payout above $22 million. Combined, the family's offer topped $26 million, well above the roughly $6,000-an-acre going rate for farmland in the county.
Bare admits she signed a contract to sell, briefly. Fear was part of it, she said, namely worries over what might happen if the company invoked eminent domain and pressure from developers who wouldn't identify themselves. But the deal didn't sit right, and she and her mother pulled out, Bare told People in an exclusive interview.
"Money couldn't move what all I've got put in place here," Huddleston told People. "So I just might as well stay and fight it out right where I'm at."
Meet the 82-year-old Kentucky grandma who turned down $26 million to turn her farm into a data center: ‘I don’t need your money’
Ida Huddleston says no amount of money was worth losing land that’s been in her family for more than 200 years.
Now she is going to have a Data Center right next door to the farm. It kind of reminds me of a public mens bathroom where you got like 10 urinals there all open but the guy walking in comes right next to you.
