The sprawling Wenham estate that once housed the Academy at Penguin Hall was scheduled to return to the auction block after a planned sale of the shuttered private school's campus fell through last month. It is at least the third time that auctioneers have tried to find a buyer for the 50-acre North Shore property since the all-girls school collapsed into bankruptcy last year.
According to Boston Business Journal, Paul E. Saperstein Co. Inc. has now attempted to sell the campus at least three times, with a previous auction postponed last year before the most recent deal collapsed. The school's owners filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on June 11, 2025.
The Academy at Penguin Hall's finances were in trouble long before the doors closed. The school had racked up a negative fund balance of $6.5 million as early as fiscal year 2022 while charging $42,800 in annual tuition for the 2024-25 school year, per the CNHI news service. The same reporting notes the school owed the Town of Wenham roughly $6,500 in delinquent water bills and was carrying a $187,922 federal tax lien that the IRS placed on the estate in 2023 over unpaid payroll taxes.
Parents and Staff Left Chasing Lost Money
Before the shutdown, the school had collected more than $500,000 in tuition for the 2025-26 academic year, prompting parents to file consumer complaints with the state attorney general and pursue legal action, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute. Families paid those tuition bills just weeks before leaders announced the permanent closure.
Former staff members have said the school owed them more than $250,000 after retirement contributions were allegedly withheld, according to a report on the Salem, Massachusetts Facebook news page. The Massachusetts Attorney General's Fair Labor Division subsequently cited school leadership following wage nonpayment complaints, a dispute documented in a decision posted by Mass.gov.
Wenham Pulls the Tax Exemption
Local officials have also moved to cut ties with the defunct institution. The Town of Wenham's Board of Assessors voted 2-0 in October 2025 to revoke the campus's property tax exemption across its three Essex Street parcels for fiscal year 2026, citing the bankruptcy filing and the June 2025 closure, according to meeting minutes posted by the Town of Wenham. Tax exemptions require active educational or charitable operations as of July 1, and with the school gone, assessors determined the estate no longer qualified.
A Storied Estate Eyed for Senior Housing
Commercial real estate firm Kelleher & Sadowsky has marketed the 50.48-acre property for redevelopment into a 55+ senior residential community, pointing to specialized Senior Living and Independent Living overlay zoning districts the town created specifically for the site, according to the firm's listing. The campus includes about 115,000 square feet of total building space.
The estate became an all-girls private school in 2016.
Questions Remain in Bankruptcy
It remains unresolved whether the ongoing bankruptcy proceedings will generate enough funds to satisfy the state wage citations, the IRS lien, and the municipal tax liabilities.
