By Katherine Clarke

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes is listing his historic estate in New York's Hudson Valley for $9.995 million, making it one of the most expensive on the market in the area.

Hughes and his husband, political activist Sean Eldridge, paid roughly $6 million for the estate in 2011. The couple spent millions upgrading it, said Hughes, adding that they are "big hikers" who have been coming to the Hudson Valley for roughly 15 years. The couple got married on the property in 2012 and lived there full time for several years before moving back to Manhattan, using the Hudson Valley property for weekends and vacations, Hughes said. They have two children.

Known as Whippoorwill Farm, the property spans more than 80 acres in the Putnam County hamlet of Garrison, a woodsy, affluent community roughly 50 miles north of New York City. The area is home to a number of large estates dating to the 19th century or earlier.

Whippoorwill Farm has 12 bedrooms across three structures: a main house that is more than 200 years old, a circa-1915, three-bedroom home, and a four-bedroom guest barn built in 2018. The couple hired a historian to research the estate, which was once owned by Aileen Osborn Webb, a prominent supporter of the American Craft movement during the Great Depression, Hughes said. Webb was married to Vanderbilt Webb, a descendant of Cornelius Vanderbilt.

In the main house and the guesthouse, Hughes and Eldridge redesigned the interiors and redid the kitchens. "I love baking, so I'm baking with my kids in the kitchen all the time, particularly on Saturday mornings," said Hughes.

The couple revamped all the landscaping and replaced the nearly century-old pool on the property. A tennis court can also be used for pickleball. "We're constantly in the pool or playing tennis," Hughes said. "We recently started playing pickleball more." The property also has hiking trails and two ponds. For the kids, aged 5 and 7, "it's nice for them to be able to go find frogs by the pond and skim stones," he said.

Hughes said the family enjoys the feeling that "you're in the middle of nowhere," even though they are just a few minutes from the restaurants and boutiques of neighboring Cold Spring.

They are selling Whippoorwill Farm because the family, based in Greenwich Village, isn't spending as much time there now that the children are in school full-time, Hughes said.

Hughes was one of the original founders of Facebook, but left the company in 2007. He made headlines in 2019 when he publicly called for the breakup of Facebook, now called Meta. He has concerns about misinformation, privacy and mental health related to social media, he said, and thinks there should be a "structural separation" of the company. He is also the author of the new book "Marketcrafters: The 100-Year Struggle to Shape the American Economy."

Eldridge ran unsuccessfully to represent New York's 19th Congressional District in 2014. He is widely know for his advocacy for same-sex marriage.

The listing agent is Angela Kessel of Houlihan Lawrence.

Write to Katherine Clarke at Katherine.Clarke@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 28, 2025 13:30 ET (17:30 GMT)

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