Carman selling Vt. farmhouse to hire lawyer
Listing ‘rare and amazing’
Alleged killer Nathan James Carman has put his sprawling fixer-upper farmhouse in Vernon, Vt., on the market for more than double what he paid four years ago as he digs deep for cash to hire a lawyer.
Built in 1850, the three-story, 6,207-square-foot property, which the 24-year-old Carman gutted down to framework and has been restoring while he lives there, is billed in real estate ads as “a rare and amazing opportunity” with “endless” possibilities.
The farmhouse at 3043 Fort Bridgman Road sits on more than an acre of land and boasts a barn, rooftop deck and private water well. It was listed March 20 for $149,000. Neither Carman nor the real estate agent handling the sale could be reached for comment yesterday.
The house is currently “a shell with a lot of potential,” said Vermont Realtor Jim Bellville, who sold Carman the house in 2014 for $70,000. “He’s a smart kid. When he bought it, it was a pretty tired four-bedroom house. He has done a huge amount of work on it. His vision for it, well, it would have been amazing. It’s unfortunate he didn’t get to finish it. It was going to be a nice, single-family home.”
Bellville said Carman credited many of his design ideas to the nursing homes his late grandfather John Chakalos developed. Chakalos, 87, was shot to death in December 2013 in his Windsor, Conn., home. His homicide remains unsolved.
“He was very adamant that it (the farmhouse) was a big nod to the innovations his grandfather had,” Bellville said.
Chakalos’ three daughters — the sisters of Carman’s missing mother, Linda Carman — filed a “slayer” petition last year, asking a New Hampshire court to declare Carman his grandfather’s murderer so they can stop him from inheriting millions of dollars from his $44 million estate. Carman is his mother’s sole heir. Linda Carman, 54, has not been heard from since Sept. 18, 2016, when her son claims the boat they were tunafishing on south of Block Island sank. He was plucked from the ocean a week later adrift in a life raft.
At a hearing last week on his aunts’ petition, Carman, who fired his legal team in February, told the court he plans to use the proceeds from the sale of his house to pay for a new attorney.
Prospective buyers are required to sign a hold-harmless agreement because of the construction.