A 1760s Farm That Survived the Revolution Is Now on Sale for $18.8 Million Thanks to a Corporate Giant

There is a stone farmhouse in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where the original walls were set in 1765. Before the American Revolution. Before the United States existed as a country.

That farmhouse just hit the market for $18.8 million. And the man selling it spent four years rebuilding it from the inside out.

Edward Breen, former CEO of DuPont, has listed Jericho Farm in Upper Makefield Township. If it sells anywhere near asking price, it will become the most expensive residential sale in Bucks County history.

The Man Behind the Listing

Wall Street had a specific nickname for Edward Breen before he ever arrived at DuPont. They called him a “breakup expert.” The Wall Street Journal used that phrase when he stepped into the CEO role in 2015.

Before DuPont, Breen spent a decade at Tyco International, a company hit by one of the biggest accounting scandals of the early 2000s.

He walked in, restructured it, and split it into five publicly traded companies including ADT, Covidien, and TE Connectivity. He then led DuPont through its three-way split with Dow Chemical and Corteva Agriscience.

He stepped down as CEO in June 2024 and continues as Executive Chairman. A longtime New Hope, Pennsylvania resident, this farm was essentially in his own backyard.

A Property That Has Changed Hands Only Twice in Over a Century

Before Breen, Jericho Farm belonged to the Bristol family, heirs to the Bristol Myers Squibb pharmaceutical fortune, for over 90 years. Two ownership chapters across more than a century. And now it is on the open market for only the second time since then.

Breen and his wife Lynn paid $4.2 million for the 147-acre Upper Makefield estate in late 2012. What followed was a four-year full-scale rebuild alongside architect Paul Kiss of OSK Design Partners and builder Tim Sager of Ferman Lex Custom Homes.

The project reportedly locked up nearly every specialized stonemason in the region. Original fieldstone exteriors were preserved throughout. Everything inside was rebuilt.

The listing is now held by Jack Lacey and Perry Epstein of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Fox & Roach, who note that a full walkthrough of all 11 structures takes approximately three hours.

What the $18.8 Million Includes

The main residence now spans 7,800 square feet across three levels. Four bedrooms, four full baths, two powder rooms. A two-story family room anchored by a towering stone fireplace. A kitchen centered on an 18-foot island. An original keeping room with a walk-in fireplace.

A glass conservatory imported from England. A primary suite with a balcony facing western sunset views.

That is just the main house.

The estate also includes a 3-bedroom cottage, a 1-bedroom guesthouse, a carriage house, a two-level office with gym, a greenhouse connected to a game room, an 8-stall horse barn, a pool with pool house, and private walking trails up Jericho Mountain.

Seventy percent of the 147 acres is woodland.

That kind of hands-on transformation is genuinely rare. Most buyers at this price point hire a designer and step back. Breen spent four years doing the opposite.

It is the same instinct that drove Suicide Squad director David Ayer to rebuild his Silver Lake home piece by piece over a decade before listing it at nearly $3 million, different scale, same obsession with getting every detail right.

The gap between what restoration-level luxury looks like and what the rest of the market is dealing with keeps widening.

Around the same time stories like this surface, cities like San Diego are approving $8.5 million just to stop affordable rentals from disappearing entirely, roughly the same amount Breen originally paid to acquire this farm in 2012.

If you follow luxury real estate listings and off-market moves before they go mainstream, the WhatsApp channel covers stories like this as they break, usually well ahead of the broader news cycle.

Why This Matters

The numbers here deserve a closer look.

Breen paid $4.2 million in 2012. The $18.8 million ask is a 347% increase over 14 years, in a county where the average home sells for around $440,000. The highest residential sale across all of Bucks County in 2025 was $5.4 million.

The all-time county record, a 100-plus-acre Plumstead property that briefly triggered Taylor Swift rumors in 2024, closed at roughly $14.5 million.

Jericho Farm at $18.8 million would shatter that record by more than $4 million.

According to Philadelphia Business Journal’s coverage of the listing, listing agents expect serious buyer interest from well beyond the local area.

Upper Makefield Township ranks 7th highest in median income among all Pennsylvania municipalities per 2024 American Community Survey data. Even by that standard, an $18.8 million ask is not a common occurrence here.

The deeper story is about what makes historic properties move at these prices. It is rarely the square footage. It is the weight of what came before. The same thing is true of the 545-year-old English country home connected to Princess Margaret that is now listed at $5.3 million.

In both cases, the property changed hands only twice in over a century. In both cases, the next buyer is not purchasing walls. They are purchasing what happened inside them.

Listing agent Jack Lacey put it plainly: “I don’t believe there’s a property in Bucks County that would be comparable to this.” The Breens, for their part, are not leaving the area. They plan to return to a nearby property they have owned in the neighborhood since 2000.

Key Takeaways

• Jericho Farm’s original structures date to 1765, among the oldest estates currently on the residential market in Pennsylvania
• Breen paid $4.2 million in 2012. The $18.8 million ask represents a 347% increase over 14 years
• The Bristol family, heirs to the Bristol Myers Squibb pharmaceutical fortune, owned the property for over 90 years before Breen
• The rebuild took four years and involved nearly every specialized stonemason available in the region at the time
• The estate has 11 structures across 147 acres, including 3 residential dwellings, an 8-stall horse barn, greenhouse, pool house, and private mountain trails
• A complete tour of all 11 structures takes approximately three hours
• If it closes near asking price, it will be the most expensive residential sale in Bucks County history, surpassing the prior record by more than $4 million

If a 260-year-old stone estate like this hit the market near you, would you preserve everything exactly as it stands or make it entirely your own?

Does a property with this much history feel like something to honor or something to carry? Drop your take in the comments. Genuinely curious what people think on this one.

Wrapping Up

A man who built his entire career around taking large things apart spent four years quietly putting one old farm back together. Stone by stone. The next owner inherits 147 acres, 11 structures, and a property that has changed hands only twice in more than a century.

That is not just a real estate listing. That is a chapter in a very long story.

If this kind of story is your thing, Build Like New covers celebrity real estate, luxury market shifts, and the human side of big transactions regularly. Worth bookmarking if you want more than just the headline.

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Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. All details are based on publicly available reports at the time of publication.