SALT LAKE CITY — Conservationist and millionaire Jennifer Speers once bought a luxury home overlooking the Colorado River outside Moab, only to order it torn down to keep a would-be commercial development from replacing a wild landscape.
In a bidding war Wednesday with a venture capital company, Speers paid about $1.5 million above the starting bid for 640 acres within Bears Ears National Monument — a spot called the Needles Outpost, which includes an old landing strip, a commercial campground, convenience store and the only gas station around for about 45 miles.
The outpost was on property owned by the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, which put it up at auction for a minimum bid of $1.03 million.
When the bidding was over between Speers' real estate agent, Tom Shellenberger, and Wolf Creek Capital, the property and assorted amenities sold for $2.5 million.
Shellenberger said Speers plans to hold onto the property as is and will not "escalate" it to some pricey resort development.
"In the short term, that is the plan. The campground provides overflow camping for the Needles District next to Canyonlands National Park," he said. "It is good news for conservationists."
Prior to the auction of four school trust lands parcels, the administration's deputy director, Kim Christy, described the property in detail — noting its tradition as the only commercial campground in the immediate area, and as a staging location for outdoor adventures at Canyonlands National Park and the surrounding region.
The outpost is now located within the geographic footprint of the newly designated Bears Ears National Monument — a 1.35-million acre swath of land set aside for cultural and resource protections by former President Barack Obama in late December.
"This may be one of the last chances to purchase property in the area," Christy said, pointing to eco-friendly attributes of the commercial property, including a sustainable off-grid system with two solar energy systems and a backup generator.
The school trust lands administration also prepared a video in advance of the sale of the Needles Outpost.
Speers, according to an online biography posted by the International Crane Foundation, came to Utah to attend the University of Utah and ski — and didn't leave.
She is chairwoman of the Nature Conservancy's board of directors in Utah, a donor, and president of the Palladium Foundation, which purchases conservation land in Utah.
Speers is also associated with the boards of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Conservation Lands Foundation, Grand Canyon Trust and the Wilderness Society, with the latter three organizations extremely active in the quest for Bears Ears to achieve monument status due to its cultural resources.
Kenny Wintch, the lead staff archaeologist with the trust lands administration, said a cultural survey by consultants documented three dozen sites at the Needles Outpost, most of which were not deemed significant.
Four sites are signficant, Wintch said, and are part of the deed covenant of restrictions that come with the sale of the property, including four rock panels that must have some sort of signage placed near them advising tourists to visit with respect.
"We are not requiring them to stay away. Two of the rock art sites are above the campground, which has been used for nearly 50 years now," he said. "We encourage people to go see the rock art. … We want them to visit the rock art with respect."
The school trust lands administration's disposal or sale of property came under fire in a report released this week by the Wilderness Society.
Brad Brooks, director of the group's public lands campaign, said the auctioning of property puts recreational access and outdoor interests at risk.
“This report demonstrates quite clearly that state land is not public land,” Brooks said.
"The state of Utah has sold off some very high-value recreation parcels throughout its history, providing a telling sign of what would happen to access for hunters, bikers, climbers and other recreationists if state officials ever got their hands on public lands.”
But Christy said school trust lands are not public lands, and according to its mandate, the administration manages them for financial return, not for multiple uses.
"That is unfortunately the greatest misunderstanding we have as an agency and as a trust administration relative to public understanding of what we do," he said. "Obviously our lands exist in a sea of federal domain, but they are not federal lands, they are not state lands; they are trust lands. "
Those scattered land parcels are managed to generate revenue for the trust lands' beneficiaries — public schools. The Permanent School Fund now stands at $2.2 billion, with more than $310 million in grants awarded to schools over the past 12 years.
In its report, the Wilderness Society criticized the school trust lands administration, saying more than 54 percent of its orignal parcels of 7.5 million acres since statehood have been "sold."
Christy said 4.1 million of the acres "sold" happened in the first 35 years of the state's history, and since the school trust lands agency was reconstituted in 1994, only 59,686 acres have been "auctioned" off — an annual average of 1,945 acres.
The majority of the land no longer in its portfolio has been divested through conservation land exchanges with the federal government, not through sales, Christy added.
Critics fear new owners of former trust lands that had been traditionally "open" are within their rights to block access once a sale is finalized.
The school trust lands administration came under sharp criticism after an October auction resulted in the acquisition by the Lyman Family Farm of nearly 400 acres near Comb Ridge in San Juan County.
At one point, a gate to a county road providing access to the area was locked by the new owners, but Christy said that has since been resolved.
In areas where there has been traditional, historic access, Christy said the school trust lands administration works with counties to ensure easements are perfected and noted in the sale.
"We take historic, public access to these lands seriously," he said.
Speers was born to a New Yorker who raised champion black Angus cattle, helping to build on the family's wealth in the finance, banking and steel businesses associated with such notables as J.P. Morgan.