ELKINS — The historic Elkins Independent Order of Odd Fellows Lodge and the 126 acres that surrounds it has been sold, following the online auction that concluded on Monday night.

Due to the sale of the estate being broken down into four parts, a trio of new owners took possession of the four pieces of property that were up for bid. The amount taken in from the auction totalled $1,391,500, according to Kaufman Realty & Auction of West Virginia.

“Everything was sold with three different buyers,” Andrew Yoder, an auctioneer and realtor for Kaufman, told The Inter-Mountain Tuesday. “Of course the buyers are still confidential at this point. But we ended up with 80 registered bidders on the auction, which is more than normal.

“But there was a wide variety of property to offer, you’ve got the lodge and that whole historical aspect of it, then you have this acreage that’s just a couple miles from town outside of the city limits. It was all good merchandise, as we say.”

One of the buyers purchased Sections 1 and 2, which included the 137-room lodge and the 22.51 acres behind the facility that runs to the Tygart Valley River. Yoder said the buyer of these two sections released a bit of information about some of their initial plans for the property.

“I have a little permission to tell what one of the buyers has intentions of doing with some of the property,” he said. “And that’s putting an RV park in. That will be located at the piece down by the river, back behind the lodge. They also have some plans for the lodge, but the buyer is still working those out. They don’t want to go into details about what’s going to happen with it yet.”

Section 3, which is the 71.4 acres of land located across the street from the lodge, went to one bidder, while Section 4 was sold to another. That section is located down the street from the lodge in the direction of the spillway and contains 14.63 acres of land.

“It’s a matter of time and all these names will come out and people will learn what is going to be done with all the property,” said Yoder. “For confidentiality reasons I can not give any more information at this time. I was not given permission to give any names and I respect that. Once it’s closed it’s public information, but until then it’s not.”

In the early 1900s, the Odd Fellows raised money to open the facility, which was to be used for orphaned children and the elderly. When it opened in 1910, it was the only charitable home operated by the Odd Fellows in the state of West Virginia. Decades after its opening the home became a facility that cared just for older adults and widows who were suffering from economic hardship. Over the past decade until the time of its closing earlier this year, it mainly served as a nursing home.

“(The sale) was a big deal for the community in Elkins and I hope for their sake it’s used for something that the locals can benefit from,” said Yoder. “Maybe it will be some employment for somebody.”