Big Tree Inn Accepts Purchase Offer

     Campus Auxiliary Services announced on May 6, that they have accepted an offer from locals Joseph Bucci, and his partners Jeff Brown, Dr. Lauren Wadsworth, Piper Wadsworth, and Jacob Caplan.

The price for the Inn was not disclosed, although the initial asking price when the Inn was put on the market in February was $1.1 million. The plan is for Bucci to buy it, and then to rent it to the other partners, to run as a restaurant and tavern, and perhaps later, as a place for lodging, as it once was. The sale details and closing are expected to be completed by this summer.

The Inn was sold by a bid process, where offers had to be submitted by March 15. Bucci, founder and CEO of American Rock Salt and his wife are both graduates of SUNY Geneseo, wanted to preserve the historic building and business which has been an integral part of the Geneseo history, until its closing in 2020, when mounting fiscal pressures, combined with regulations put into effect during the pandemic, led to its announced temporary, later permanent closure.

The Inn has been in business in the same location as a restaurant and tavern since about 1833.  In the late 1800’s, it was bought and enlarged by prominent Geneseoan James Wadsworth who enlarged the building, and added hotel rooms in the late 1800’s.  It has operated as a restaurant and tavern (and sometimes hotel and event center) continuously since about 1895, under several owners, until its closure in 2020 by the Campus Auxiliary Services, who purchased the historic business 22 years earlier.  It has remained closed since 2020, until being put up for sale through a bid process earlier this year.