Rare Private Island on Minnesota's Lake Minnetonka Lists for the First Time in 50 Years at $7.25 Million
Realtor.com · Kellie Speed · 12 September 2026

Kortom
A 2-acre private island on Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota, has come to market for the first time in 53 years, listed at $7,250,000. Known as Gale Island, the compound in Shorewood sits within 1,841 feet of lakeshore and includes multiple historic structures: a summer house dating to 1874, a main house built in 1950, a guest cabin from 1954, a waterfront barbecue gazebo, a three-storey tower with hidden beds, and a log cabin accessed by a bridge. The island was originally purchased from the US federal government in 1871, spent time as a St. Olaf College retreat, and has been in private family ownership for the past five decades. The listing agent describes it as well-suited to multigenerational living or use as a private family retreat.
Ons siening
This listing is firmly outside the South African property market — it's a US luxury island estate priced at roughly R133 million at current exchange rates — so it holds no direct relevance for local buyers, sellers, tenants, or landlords. That said, it offers a useful reference point for SA property enthusiasts interested in ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) global real estate trends. For South African readers, the story is a reminder of what genuine scarcity looks like in luxury property: a single-family island, held for over half a century, with layered historic structures and no comparable inventory. SA does have its own rare coastal and island-adjacent luxury stock — think Thesen Islands in Knysna or exclusive Clifton frontage in Cape Town — but nothing quite matches the private-island category. If you're a South African investor tracking offshore diversification opportunities or simply curious about where UHNW capital flows globally, this is the kind of generational asset that rarely surfaces. For most SA readers, however, this is aspirational reading rather than actionable intelligence. We've included it for its novelty and to benchmark what "rare" truly means in luxury real estate terms.
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