Mecklenburg’s last dairy farm sells, will become residential neighborhood

The remaining 200 acres of a dairy farm in Huntersville will be turned into a residential community.

The Westmoreland Dairy Farm, which began operations in the early 1900s, was sold to developer Shea Homes in August for more than $24.6 million, according to Mecklenburg County records. Foundry Commercial assisted in the sale and announced it in a Friday news release.

Records indicate three separate sales to Shea Homes on Aug. 26. It’s unclear when operations will cease on the farm. Comment requests to Foundry and the farm’s Facebook page weren’t immediately answered. Plans and details for the site are still being finalized. But according to the release, Shea intends to build a residential neighborhood with “higher-end single-family homes” with some valued at more than $1 million.

The farm off of Westmoreland Road and Sam Furr Road isn’t a stranger to large size redevelopment plans.

A massive $800 million mixed-used community called Lagoona Bay Beach Club was planned for the site in 2023. The development went through several iterations, one of which included a beach resort, recreational lagoon and more than 600 homes.

But residents expressed concern over the size of the development and traffic congestion. So did the Huntersville Planning Board, which said the plan would turn Sam Furr Road “from a rural corridor into a fully intensified one.”

The plan was later withdrawn.

The Westmoreland sale is illustrative of growing urban encroachment on farmland in Mecklenburg County and North Carolina as the population continues to exponentially grow.

In 1995, Huntersville’s population was about 5,000 people. As of last year, that town’s population had hit more than 67,000 people, according to census data.

About Westmoreland Farm

According to Foundry, Westmoreland is the last operational dairy farm in Mecklenburg County. It goes by several names, including Westmoreland & Sons Farm.

Thomas Westmoreland Jr., who was not involved in the farm’s operations, confirmed the sale. He said the farm has been in the family since 1913.

But with rising farm costs and a loss of property due to development, operations weren’t sustainable.

In a 2024 Spectrum News story, Chris Westmoreland said the farm started as a cotton farm and transitioned to dairy cattle in the 1950s. In 2011, the farm switch to corn, soybeans, wheat, beef cattle and hay.

Chris Westmoreland at the time said the farm had already lost 500 acres due to development.

Westmoreland is the latest farm to sell in Huntersville.

In May, the Wallace Farm was sold to Denali, a Russellville, Arkansas-based organic recycling company. Denali planned to take over the operations of the farm’s two facilities — the 75-acre facility in Huntersville and a 162-acre site in Advance, near Greensboro and Winston-Salem. The Wallace Farm had been owned by the Wallace family since 1863.

This story was originally published October 3, 2025 at 3:43 PM.