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Last week, the Big Sur Land Trust announced it had sold the 317-acre Whisler-Wilson Ranch—a stunning south Carmel property with vistas of Point Lobos State Reserve—to Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District for $4 million.

As the Weekly first reported last October, the big-picture vision is a contiguous stretch of public parkland along the east side of Highway 1, from just south of Carmel to south of Point Lobos.

The sale of Whisler-Wilson—which connects the 4,350-acre, MPRPD-owned Palo Corona Regional Park and the 1,312-acre, State Parks-owned Point Lobos Ranch—makes that happen. Big Sur Land Trust acquired all three private properties before selling them to the public parks agencies, in keeping with its nonprofit model.

MPRPD was able to buy Whisler-Wilson using $3 million in Proposition 117 funds and a $1 million grant from the California Coastal Conservancy. BSLT transferred 107 acres of the ranch to the park district on Jan. 15; the rest will be handed over by 2015.

"The spectacular property is part of the historic Point Lobos Ranch once owned and cared for by the A.M. Allan family, who is credited with originally saving Point Lobos from development in the late 1800s," a BSLT press release states. The land trust bought the property from the Whisler and Wilson Family Trusts.