The Catskill Dail Mail's intrepid reporter Colin DeVries reports today that the Friar Tuck hotel was sold for $2.5 million in an online auction on Thursday, a year after the failed bankruptcy auction began a long period of limbo for the resort.

Michael Shaughnessy, executive vice president of Ulster Savings Bank, said on the day of the sale that the bank was pleased with the sale although they did short-sell the hotel property. Outstanding mortgage debt on the property exceeded $3.2 million when Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings began in September 2009.

A Nov. 19, 2009 bankruptcy auction’s sole bid of $4.5 million was never completed and ultimately resulted in the bank’s repossession of the property six months later.

Shaughnessy could not release the name of the buyer but said it was a real estate investment group that was cleared by the auction company, international real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle.

The sale did not include the timeshare properties, though the bankruptcy-court-appointed trustee in charge of liquidating the property, Marc Ehrlich of Troy, hoped the buyer of the hotel property would express interest in acquiring the contiguous timeshare property.

The hotel property, as advertised on auction.com, includes 170 acres and 12 buildings including the four-story, 372-room hotel built in 1971 and was founded and previously owned by the Caridi family.

While the bidders had anonymity through the online auction process, the name of the purchaser may be available after the 30-day closing period.