Battle of (two) wills: Eagan property owner's death sets off legal battle for one of the city's last big green spaces

The future of a large parcel of rolling farmland and forest in Eagan is in question after the land's "eccentric" owner died in April and two people — with two different wills — allege he left the land to them to preserve.

The land, about 134 acres divided among three contiguous parcels, was owned by Patrick McCarthy, a lifelong bachelor and descendant of an Irish family that first settled there in 1850. Today, it's worth more than $10 million.

Located in Eagan west of Lexington Avenue and bisected by Wescott Road, the property is a vestige of a bygone era, said Al Singer, Dakota County's real estate manager.

"Eagan is now in that state of development that there is relatively little undeveloped land, privately owned, that's in this natural, open space condition," said Singer, who knew McCarthy. "And so it's pretty rare."

Jodi McCarthy, a cousin of Patrick McCarthy, says he wanted the land to stay in the family and remain natural forever. She says a will he signed in 2020 gave it all to an unnamed beneficiary who would honor his wishes. Jodi McCarthy, a Utah teacher who plans to return to Minnesota to live on the parcel, says she's filed paperwork to start a company and trust to do just that.

"All of it would revolve around keeping it green space and farming," Jodi McCarthy said.

But a second person, Lee Markell, says Patrick McCarthy intended for him to oversee future preservation of the land. A will signed by McCarthy in 2022 names Markell as "beneficiary." Markell's attorney, Hayley Howe, said the will nominates Markell as McCarthy's "personal representative."

Markell, once an independent contractor who monitored Dakota County's conservation easements, says he's started a foundation to fulfill Patrick McCarthy's instructions in the will.

In an affidavit, Markell said he met Patrick McCarthy in 2016 and soon "learned it was very important to [McCarthy] to preserve his land as agricultural or conservation for perpetuity" but was never told about any relationships with surviving family members.

"[McCarthy] decided the solution would be to entrust his estate to people he trusted to set up a nonprofit board of directors to oversee management of the properties," the affidavit reads, naming six people, including Markell, as board members.

The two wills are essentially versions of the same document, with a few key differences.

A hearing in the case was held Sept. 7 in Dakota County District Court. Judge Shawn Moynihan has 90 days from that date to issue a decision.

Markell, through his attorney, declined to comment.

Patrick McCarthy was a descendant of James McCarthy, who arrived in Minnesota in the 1850s from County Cork, Ireland, following his brother, John. They were among Eagan's earliest settlers.

Patrick McCarthy worked as a truck driver and farmer, living on his family's land for much of his life. The youngest of four boys, he outlived his siblings, dying in April 2023 at age 87 after experiencing heart problems.

Rollin Crawford, who served as McCarthy's attorney in the 1990s, knew him from the time he was a teenager. Brothers James and Patrick McCarthy owned dump trucks and worked for Crawford's father in the excavating business.

"Pat was eccentric. He had a lot of ideas; he didn't talk a lot," Crawford said. "He was a charming guy in his own way."

Crawford recalled McCarthy as stocky and dark-haired, with a sense of humor and an occasional twinkle in his eye. He said McCarthy was proud of his family's land and didn't want it to become a housing development.

Crawford doesn't remember drafting a will for McCarthy when he worked for him.

Crawford was McCarthy's attorney in 2004 when he donated 29 acres of his land to Dakota County as a conservation easement, meaning he would retain ownership but it couldn't be developed.

This isn't the first legal battle involving the land. Starting about 20 years ago, a court case between McCarthy and Tollefson Development raged on for years, with Crawford representing McCarthy.

The Lakeville developer alleged that James McCarthy, who had recently died, signed an agreement to sell 60 acres of the land. Plans called for a neighborhood of new houses.

In the end, the agreement's terms were deemed too vague by the judge, said Chad Lemmons, Tollefson's attorney, so the land never changed hands.

Jodi McCarthy recalls visiting the McCarthy property every weekend as a kid because her grandparents also lived on the land. Jodi and Patrick McCarthy's great-grandfathers were brothers, she said.

However, she and Patrick didn't start hanging out until she was an adult, in the 1980s and 1990s, when a shared interest in genealogy "brought us together," she said.

He was a funny, hardworking man who loved his farm, she said.

Jodi McCarthy said her cousin always intended for some land to be rented out for farming to create income. She pictures community gardens on the site, too, she said, along with an education center on farming and food preservation, a "natural" campground, observation tower and an area for historical reenactments.

Jodi McCarthy said she was the only person to whom Patrick McCarthy gave a copy of his will, but she didn't know it at the time. She saw the will again when he died and she visited the house.

"It's set it up in such a way that really I'm handcuffed to it," she said of the will, adding that the land can't be transferred to her until a judge sees she is preserving the land.

She sees problems with the will and petition that Markell submitted to the court; she doesn't believe Patrick McCarthy put Markell's name on the will and thinks it was added after McCarthy's death.

She also alleges that the will wasn't completed correctly. It was signed by two bank employees, one of them a notary, while Patrick McCarthy was sitting outside in the car at the bank's drive-up window, too ill to walk inside.

Jodi McCarthy also says there are questions about whether Patrick McCarthy should have been changing his will at all if he was too sick to walk. She has doubts about Markell's overall intentions with the land and whether they reflect her cousin's plans.

Singer, who worked with Patrick McCarthy, Markell and a group of residents nearly 20 years ago to preserve green space in Eagan, said several people encouraged Patrick McCarthy to draw up a will, but he resisted. Eventually a will was developed and signed by McCarthy, he said.

Singer said Markell and other group members are just trying to protect Patrick McCarthy's land — and his best interests.

"They knew him and they are authentic, caring people," Singer said.