Billionaire Warren Buffett's son, Peter, has transformed the quaint upstate New York town of Kingston, decades after cashing out a $90,000 inheritance.
Peter, 66, and his wife Jennifer have lived on the outskirts of town since 2011 in a 19th-century farmhouse worth $1.2 million.
The couple's desire to create a “sustainable society” led them to invest $250 million in the redevelopment of Kingston, according to Tablet magazine, mainly through their nonprofit organization the NoVo Foundation.
Buffets' first project was in 2013 when they purchased a 1,600-acre parcel of land Gill Farm – renamed Hudson Valley Farm – providing training to farmers, conducting agricultural research and creating an organic food system.
Peter Buffett (left), son of billionaire Warren Buffett (center), has transformed the quaint upstate New York town of Kingston, decades after cashing out a $90,000 inheritance.
Since 2011, Peter and his wife Jennifer have lived on the outskirts of the city
The couple's desire to create a “sustainable society” led them to invest $250 million in the redevelopment of Kingston, largely through the nonprofit NoVo Foundation.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the farm distributed 300,000 pounds of food to the community.
Since then, they've been donating to food outlets and pumping money into rebuilding critical infrastructure and historic buildings.
Also under construction include a 70,000-square-foot youth cultural center in an abandoned furniture factory, which the foundation purchased in 2022. It supports local businesses with “buffet bucks,” a local currency used only in the city.
At the age of 19, long before moving to Kingston, Peter raised $90,000 worth of stock to launch his music career.
He later had $500,000 in Berkshire Hathaway stock and inherited $10 million after his mother died in 2004.
Two years later, Warren gave Peter and Jennifer $1 billion as a guarantee of an annual allotment of Berkshire stock.
That same year, Peter and Jennifer founded the NoVo Foundation
One of the historic preservation projects they implemented in the city was the octagonal Bonesteel House on Broadway, which hosted Radio Kingston from 2021.
Peter, who serves on the radio station's board of directors, said in a 2022 letter that the station serves “as a platform where the diverse voices of Kingston come together” and that “has become the main source of information for other organizations and local governments.
Every day, the station reminds about projects of non-profit organizations aimed at revitalizing the community.
According to Tablet, the programs typically feature employees from NoVo-funded organizations interviewing each other, prompting one small business owner to tell the radio station that the radio station was spreading propaganda.
The programs are often conducted by employees of organizations financed by NoVo, who conduct interviews with each other – says Tablet, hosting one of them company owner to call it “propaganda”.
One of Peter's conservation projects was what is now Radio Kingston, of which he serves on the board of directors.
His foundation is in the process of building a youth community center in an abandoned 70,000-square-foot furniture factory that it purchased in 2022.
The study found that in 2020, Kingston had the fastest single-family home price growth in the country in a year
Radio Kingston is not the only media entity in the city causing controversy.
Local online news site Kingston's Drut accused the foundation of withdrawing funding for the publication due to the lack of favorable articles about the nonprofit organization and of publishing an article in 2021 about Peter's relationship with Kingston City Land Bank.
The publisher of the news source said the editor-in-chief of Radio Kingston told him that funding was withdrawn due to a lack of climate coverage and positive articles in NoVo, Prospect.org reported.
Since Buffett began investing in the city, gentrification in the city has accelerated – especially during the pandemic. According to Tablet, new residents have settled here, and some have started working for NoVo-funded companies and non-profit organizations.
According to stock exchange data, the average listing price was $449,000 in August, which was $25,000 higher than the national median in September. Real Estate.com.
The study shows that in 2020, the city recorded the fastest annual increase in single-family house prices in the country.
Peter addressed this issue in a separate letter from 2021, expressing his disappointment that the city was gentrifying
According to the 2022 Census, Kingston's 2022 poverty rate was 18.4% and the median income was $62,071
Piotr addressed this issue in a separate letter from 2021, expressing his disappointment with the fact of the city's gentrification.
“Gentrification is an urgent issue; it would be a tragic and profound injustice if this community were changed beyond recognition by the totality of forces that are increasing housing costs and prices and reducing affordability and accessibility.
“Our challenge was to support significant change in a specific neighborhood, so that it did not inadvertently displace the very people who were expected to benefit.”
The average listing price was $449,000 in August, $25,000 more than the national median in September
Peter is set to oversee his father's entire fortune after his death through a charitable trust alongside his siblings Susie, 71 (center left) and Howard, 69 (left)
According to the Kingston study, the poverty rate in 2022 was 18.4% and the average income was $62,071. 2022 census.
Peter is set to oversee his father's entire fortune following his death through a charitable trust, along with siblings Susie, 71, and Howard, 69.
They will have just 10 years to donate all the money to the charities of their choice.
