Chuck Kuhn, the Virginia businessman who bought the shuttered White’s Ferry two years ago and promised to get it running again, now says that he’s going to have to sell the operation altogether — casting further doubt on whether the historic ferry will ever cross the Potomac River again.

Kuhn said in a press release on Monday morning that efforts to buy the privately owned landing on the Virginia side of the river had been rebuffed by its owners; it was a dispute over access to the landing that prompted the ferry to cease operations suddenly in late 2020. Kuhn, who bought the ferry shortly after it was shuttered, says a coalition of interested parties — including the governments of Montgomery County, Maryland and Loudoun County, Virginia — had offered $1.1 million for the 1.4-acre landing in January.

“We are grateful for the significant and good faith efforts of our local and state governments on both sides of the Potomac to help us reopen White’s Ferry. It’s unfathomable that one family is standing in the way of people’s livelihoods. We have run out of options and will now seek to sell the ferry land and operations to Montgomery County so it can work to invoke eminent domain and acquire the Virginia landing site. This is not what we had hoped, but we understand the importance of White’s Ferry to the region’s economy — and the ferry needs to get moving again,” said Kuhn, the owner of Sterling-based JK Moving Services and a history buff who has used his wealth to preserve a number of local sites.

The family Kuhn was referring to is the Devlins, who own Historic Rockland Farm in Loudoun County, which includes the ferry landing. (Kuhn owns the landing site on the Maryland side of the river, which is close to the town of Poolesville in western Montgomery County.) The Devlins had largely co-existed the ferry, which carried an estimated 600 to 800 cars a day, until a dispute over access to the landing boiled over, prompting the sudden closure. Attempts to negotiate an amicable solution have since failed; the Devlins had demanded to be paid a per-car fee, but Kuhn has said that wouldn’t be financially viable for him.

Even if Kuhn does sell White’s Ferry to Montgomery County, it remains to be seen if and how that would unlock the stalled negotiations over access to the Virginia landing. While officials on the Maryland side of the river have said the simplest solution would be for Virginia to use eminent domain to simply take the land, their counterparts in Loudoun County have said that the ferry isn’t important enough to merit such a step. (Virginia officials have long advocated for another bridge across the Potomac River, a proposal Maryland officials have long been opposed to — especially around White’s Ferry, a gateway to the county’s 90,000-acre agricultural reserve.)

In an email, Libby Devlin, one of the owners of Rockland Farm, says the offer Kuhn and the two governments made for the landing wasn’t acceptable. But she also says that there’s still a possibility to revive White’s Ferry on terms laid out by the farm.

“The reason that we turned down the $1.1 combined offer from Loudoun County, Montgomery County, and Mr. Kuhn is that Rockland Farm will not accept a flat fee for its Virginia landing. We favor a volume-based fee that varies with the amount of traffic encroaching upon our land,” she wrote.

“We have located a nationally based company that will work with both sides to get a ferry up and and running again and operate it. However, the Maryland owner has refused to work with this company and has told them that he intends to be the ferry operator. Rockland Farm has also made an offer to both Montgomery and Loudoun Counties for a permanent easement on our Virginia landing in exchange for a volume-based fee. Our offer is still on the table. Finally, we are willing to work with Loudoun and Montgomery Counties to explore realigning our landing, acquiring a vessel, putting in a maintenance facility and operating the ferry from Virginia using the independent operator we have found,” added Devlin.

White’s Ferry started operations in 1786, and was at the time one of dozens of ferries that crossed the Potomac River between Maryland and Virginia. Officials and activists in the western portion of Montgomery County recently told DCist/WAMU that the historic ferry was an important part of the area’s economy, and that businesses have seen declines in revenue since it closed just over two years ago.