Musician Ray LaMontagne’s $4.5 Million Western Mass. Estate Sets Sale Record

The Grammy-winning musician's 10,747-square-foot compound is the most expensive single-family home ever sold in Pioneer Valley.

By Stefanie Schwalb· 12/13/2023, 8:36 p.m.

Ray LaMontagne and his wife, poet Sarah Sousa, bought the property in 2008. / Photo by Randy O’Rourke

Consisting of Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin Counties, historic Pioneer Valley is known first and foremost for its beautiful landscape. The Western Massachusetts’ area is also a hub for arts and culture, and the creators who bring them to life. Case in point is 369 Bullitt Rd. in Ashfield, the former dwelling of Grammy-winning musician Ray LaMontagne and his wife, poet Sarah Sousa. This bucolic country estate recently sold for a record $4.5 million—the highest price ever reached on a property sale in the region—after spending just 106 days on the market.

Listed in mid-August for $5.25 million, under contract by mid-October, and closed on December 1, 369 Bullitt Road was sold by Gladys Montgomery and Herb Butzke of William Pitt – Julie B. Fee Sotheby’s International Realty. “It was fairly quick for a property at this price in western Massachusetts,” Montgomery notes. The buyer—a businessperson based nearby who intends to use the property as a venue and retire there—was the first to visit it and negotiate an offer that was acceptable to the sellers, even although there were other potential buyers from outside the area, she adds.

The 10,747-square-foot-space compound is set on 104 acres. Originally constructed in 1811, the dwelling was formerly home to U.S. Ambassador William C. Bullitt, who served under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Some of its impressive features include: six bedrooms, four-and-a-half baths, a library, a great room, a country kitchen, a 1920s-era, three-bay garage; several outbuildings including a stone cottage and three-level barn; and outdoor spaces complete with serene gardens and fruit trees. (Fun fact: Since 2010, LaMontagne had used the great room as a recording studio, beginning with his Grammy Award–winning album, God Willing and the Creek Don’t Rise.) In addition to the creativity that blossomed at the estate, the couple also put significant work into revitalizing it.

“When Ray LaMontagne and Sarah Sousa bought 369 Bullitt Road in 2008, it was uninhabitable, yet they fell in love with the house and property,” Montgomery says. “They’re both artists with a keen aesthetic sensibility and a meticulous devotion to craftsmanship, and so they brought those qualities to the restoration and revamping. It was also a labor of love. The end result shows that, and it came across loud and clear.”