Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Robinsons put contentious sale at a ‘standstill’
Crebilly Farm owners put aside court dispute over upcoming sale of iconic property
WEST CHESTER >> A cloud that hung over the planned sale of the iconic and historic Crebilly Farm in Westtown for preservation as public open space dissipated Thursday during a hearing on whether an injunction should be granted over the way its proceeds should be handled.
The legal dispute pitted the two owners of Crebilly, the scions of the family who founded Acme Markets and who have owned the farmland on which American troops in the Revolutionary War marched. It appeared that James “Rob” Robinson and his younger brother David Robinson were at loggerheads over David’s alleged plan to make distributions of the proceeds without Robs permission.
In his request for a Common Pleas judge to put a halt to the transactions that would be part of the sale, Rob Robinson said that his brother was going outside of the Crebilly Farm Family Association (CFFA) and its partnership agreement. He also suggested that his brother had misappropriated more than $6 million of the partnership’s funds.
“For years David used (the association) as his own personal bank by syphoning millions of dollars of partnership funds to pay for his and his family’s personal expenses and lavish lifestyle,” the request for an injunction filed in April by Rob Robinson’s attorneys stated. The older man suggested that he would need t personally agree to the sale of the farm for its go go through, and would not do so unless and accounting of the partnership funds was conducted.
But David Robinson, who lives in Chester County and is the managing partner of he farm association, countered that the real reason for the lawsuit was to keep money from going to his wife and children from the sale, estimated to being in $30 million.
“Rob premises this lawsuit on a lie,” David Robinson’s attorneys wrote in their response to the injunction request. “The truth is Rob left his family and this business decades ago for what he perceived as greener pastures in New Mexico, leaving David to run the family business alone.
“After David extraordinary leadership of CFFA has it at the closing table for a remarkable return, Rob swoops back in from New Mexico in an attempt” to block his Davis’s wife and children from benefiting from the sale, the response stated.
Both men attended the hearing, but did not address the court or testify. During a break in the proceedings, the two sat next to one another and talked not only about the dispute between them (“This is a waste of time,” David Robinson could be overheard to say), but about one another’s health.
Most concerning for local residents, however, was David Robinson’s assertion that if the injunction were granted, the closings on the farm set for this month would be jeopardized — delayed or stopped entirely. That possibility was raised by the attorneys for David from Fox Rothschild of Exton at the hearing before Judge Jeffrey Sommer at the Chester County Justice Center.
Attorneys for Rob Robinson disputed that his move would have any impact on the future sale of the farm for open space preservation.
But whether it would or not, that looming concern was erased after an hour long conference among the attorneys for each side, Sommer, and the two brothers, at the conclusion of which the parties announced they had reached an agreement that would allow the sale of the land — to Natural Lands, Westtown, and a third buyer — to go through.
Attorney Guy Donatelli, of the West Chester law firm of Lamb McErlane, representing Rob Robinson, told Sommer the two sides had agreed to put the litigation on a “standstill.” That would allow the settlements between the farm association and the buyers to go through as planned.
Whatever assets come into the CFFA through the sale would be placed in a partnership account, and only signatures from the two sides would be able to disperse whatever money comes in, Donatelli said. If no agreement on how to disperse the funds — among the brothers, their wives, children and grandchildren — the parties would be back before Sommer sometime in the future, he said.
In April 2022, CFFA agreed to sell 206 acres of the farm that is among the largest parcels of open space left in the eastern part of the county. It also agreed to sell 104 acres to Natural Lands, and a smaller 24 acre lot to a third party who was not identified in court records. Natural lands and Westtown intend to use much of the land for open space and passive recreation.
The agreement came after Westtown voters had agreed to a tax increase to fund the purchase, and after plans by the brothers to sell the piece of American Revolution history to the Toll Brothers company for a housing development — a fate that had local land preservationists up in arms.
The property is bordered by Routes 202 (Wilmington Pike) and 926 (Street Road), West Pleasant Grove Road, and South New Street.
Sommer, hearing of the brothers’ agreement, sounded gratified. He had noted that he is very familiar with the property, having driven by it tens or thousands of times in his life in the county. But moreover, he expressed satisfaction that the brothers were working to bridge whatever breach occurred between their families.
“Thank you both,” he said as the two men stood before the bench. “The overriding concerns for me as an individual, not as a judge whatever relationship the two of you have is as healthy as can be and continues to be a healthy relationship.
“I am very happy you have reached this accord,” he said.