A billionaire who is a minority owner of an NFL football team has more buildings under construction in a wealthy neighborhood on Mount Desert Island.
Mitchell Rales, who lives in the Washington D.C. area when not in Maine and is part of the Commanders ownership group, continues to redevelop Ringing Point on Cooksey Drive in Seal Harbor, which he bought in 2018 for $19 million. The property previously had been owned for decades by fellow billionaire David Rockefeller Sr., who passed away in 2017 at the age of 101.
Rales had Rockefeller’s former 7-bedroom home on the property demolished in 2022 and, that same year, began to redevelop the 15-acre oceanfront property, which is named for the sounds emitted by a bell buoy anchored offshore. Rather than construct a large traditional house with multiple bedrooms, a kitchen, and various living spaces all under one roof, Rales is building a half dozen smaller cottages on the property that will serve different functions.
In 2022, Rales got a permit from the town of Mount Desert to build a $4.5 million, 2,900 square-foot building to serve as a gathering space for Rales, his family and friends. It has two half-bathrooms, a kitchen, a dining area and a living area separated by a two-sided fireplace, but no bedrooms. It is the only building on the property with a second story — a mezzanine that overlooks the living area.
The following year, Rales was approved to build a $2.75-million, 1,600 square-foot cottage on the property that serves as sleeping quarters.
Four more buildings now under construction on the property were approved last year by the town. Two of them are residential suites with bedrooms and full bathrooms, each with a little more than 1,000 square-feet of living space and a construction price tag of $2 million.
A third building under construction is a $2.75-million, 1,500 square foot sleeping cottage, and a fourth is a 1,000 square-foot study being built for $2.5 million.
A previous 2,000 square-foot guest cottage on the property, which Rockefeller had built in 1972, has been demolished this winter.
Another Rales building project currently under way on MDI is across the street at 46 Cooksey Drive. That property, which Rales bought in 2019 for $2.8 million, has served as a staging area for the demolition and construction work happening at Ringing Point.
Rales demolished a $1.7 million house on this property in 2023 and now is constructing a large building on it for $3.5 million. The structure, which consists of two halves spaced apart but connected by a roof that bridges over the gap, will be used as an operations building by Rales’ personal staff. It will have a garage, a workshop, offices, a laundry room, a kitchen, a lounge and living quarters.
Rales also is expected to redevelop another residential property in the neighboring village of Northeast Harbor, which he bought in 2022 for $6.8 million.
Last year he demolished a 5,000 square-foot house that had been built in 1904 at 79 Peabody Drive, which directly overlooks the harbor. He has been issued a permit to construct a foundation for a new house at this same address, but so far has not built the foundation or submitted plans for what might be constructed on the 5-acre property.
It would be the second property in Northeast Harbor that Rales has redeveloped. In 2007 he bought Blueberry Ledge, the former home of Washington socialite Susan Mary Alsop, for $5.5 million and then tore that down. He replaced it with an 8,000 square-foot contemporary-design mansion that he still owns.
