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Around this time, a real estate developer by the name of Norman Langdon, originally from Connecticut but a Maine resident since 1964, was flipping through an old magazine and saw an aerial photograph of the Island. "The article mentioned developing it into a club," Langdon later recalled. "I'd never heard about it, so I decided to look into it. It was still there and they'd never done anything with it. When I first saw it, I figured I had to have it, and I ended up getting it!" That happened on February 15, 1972. On that day Mr. Langdon's North Atlantic Land and Cattle Company purchased the entire island from the Van Horne Island Club for the sum of $300,000 and renamed it Harbour Farm.Like the Van Horne Island Club at one point, Langdon envisioned a significant cottage development on Minister's Island, though less crowded and perhaps more upscale. In 1973 he and summer residents Judy and Carl Sapers, prospective buyers, collaborated on a subdivision scheme, dividing the Island up into 36 quite spacious lots, with a huge lot reserved for Covenhoven as a sales office, and a 150-acre common area in the center, where the airstrip sat. According to the subdivision scheme, no house could be erected which did not cost at least $20,000. No house trailer or mobile home was permitted, and all building had to be kept back at least 50 feet from high water. Said Langdon: "We don't want somebody coming up here and building a bomb. We're very much concerned about the image of the Island. There aren't many places like this."
A Woodstock writer named Alistair Cameron lived in the gardener's cottage for the first few years of Langdon's tenure and in several articles left an interesting snapshot of Minister's Island at that point in time. Langdon gave him a key to Covenhoven, and Cameron noted that there were many items from the Van Horne period still in the house. Oil paintings still hung on the walls, a glassed-in bookcase still contained some of the Van Horne books, and a huge blue rocking chair occupied a spot on a nearly room-sized Persian carpet. There stood Sir William's easel in a corner of the studio, with brushes and impressive, hand-carved cabinet nearby. On a rack in the butler's pantry hung linen towels with the words "Van Horne Maids" on them, embroidered in red thread, the work of Lucy and Adaline themselves perhaps. Nearby hung yellowed maids' uniforms and blue straw hats. Though the house had been electrified, the old gas fixtures were still in place. Upstairs, in Lady Van Horne's room, a sewing basket and pin cushions "still lay on a wicker table as if the lady had just left them long enough to get a cup of tea." The Van Horne carriages, all four in excellent condition, stood in the carriage house next door; next to them rested the huge black stove that had since been removed from the kitchen.
The grounds had gone downhill. Though Bill Clarke remained gardener on the Island, his tasks had been severely curtailed. The driveways and walks were significantly devoid of flowers, Cameron remembered, their places marked now by indentations. The livestock had been reduced to five Highland cows, which Langdon had brought in from Nova Scotia. Interestingly, in spite of its rather worn appearance, the Island was still being visited every summer by curious tourists, who, unaware that Covenhoven was occupied, sometimes got a shock when they would peer through windows to find themselves being observed in turn. Cameron found the Island to be a magical retreat from the world, a place of deep peace and relaxation. Given the very busy nature of Minister's Island under the Van Hornes, that feeling probably said a great deal about how far downhill the Island had gone by Langdon's time.
During his 5-year ownership of Minister's Island, Langdon put his mark on the place. He had a vision and part of that included renovations. He put a new roof on Covenhoven. When he arrived, he said, the asbestos roof of 1910 was leaking in numerous places and plaster had fallen down on the rugs and furniture. He would claim in later years to have redecorated about 70 percent of the main building. He turned the barn white, covering the old cedar shingles with some sort of particleboard composition. Most of the other buildings got a touch-up, including the old dwelling house of Samuel Andrews. He built roads and cleaned up some of the existing roads. By his own later estimation he spent about $300,000 on renovations. Not all the work was high quality. Local resident John Gibson thought Langdon hired mostly cheap, unskilled labour. Some wondered why he bothered at all, but Langdon said if he tore the buildings down he might as well move because there wouldn't be much left.
In fact, Langdon did tear down a number of buildings. These included, Henry Clarke and others recalled, pig pens, sheep pens, hen pens, the implement shed, a building in the courtyard that was used as a boathouse, the laundry and chauffeur building. This last was quite a beautiful building, recalled Clarke. Less explicably, Langdon also pulled down the large and rather handsome old Andrews house on the hill. "That was a good house," says Clarke, "there was nothing wrong with that house." Langdon had once expressed a determination to renovate it, but somehow or other, plans had changed.
After a couple of years, Langdon began to get the Hossler blues. A lot of money was going out but very little was coming in. While only $5,000 was due on his mortgage for 1973, a stiff $25,000 was due in 1974 and $30,000 every year thereafter. But by 1974 Langdon had sold only three lots and in this year he seems to have defaulted on his mortgage to the Van Horne Island Club. That fall Harold Hossler drove 1,800 miles non-stop to Minister's Island and, his daughter Jane remembered, was sickened at the changes he saw, in particular the particleboard barn and the mustard yellow paint jobs. Negotiations with the Province for purchase of the Island were going nowhere, and in the fall of 1975 Langdon was forced to take out a second mortgage—this one from the Royal Trust Company. And like the Hosslers before him, he stumbled on with this elegant millstone hanging round his neck.
In March of 1977, three years after Langdon had sold his last lot, the unthinkable happened and a notice in the Telegraph Journal announced that Minister's Island was to be put up for auction. "I've spent three and a half years of my life on this island and I can get as enthused about Van Horne as anyone," said Langdon, "but I've finally reached the conclusion that I'm not in the museum business." The extent and expense of renovations, he said, had proven to be overwhelming. He had been having sporadic negotiations with the New Brunswick government since 1974, and in 1976 St. Andrews Town Council had recommended that Government buy the Island for use as a provincial park. But nothing happened. Now, perhaps to force Premier Hatfield's hand, Langdon determined to let the market decide the shape of the future. "Somebody told me that government never acts 'til it's too late. Now I don't believe anything until I see the bucks on the table."