David Cole, the venture capitalist and former America Online executive turned sustainable-agriculture advocate, has put the nearly 422-acre Sunnyside Farm in Virginia's Rappahannock County on the market for $7.5 million.

Cole and his wife, Maggie, made Hawai'i their principal home in 2003 when he was named chief executive of Maui Land & Pineapple Co., an agricultural and resort operation. AOL founder Steve Case is majority owner.

"Over the past three years, we have spent a total of nine days at Sunnyside," Cole wrote in an e-mail. "With the decision last month to extend my contract on Maui, it became clear the prospects for future visits had diminished."

In 1996, Cole paid a little more than $1.5 million for the Virginia property in Harris Hollow, near the town of Washington, with its neglected orchards, fallow fields and well-worn stone and frame main house, circa 1785. He turned it into a showplace of organic farming, animal husbandry and genteel comfort. By 2002, between the initial purchase price, additional acreage, barns and machinery as well as offices, a grocery store and a leased 10,000-square-foot restaurant and retail operation in nearby Sperryville, he had spent more than $20 million.

Speculation concerning the future and possible sale of Sunnyside has increased over the past year as shoppers noticed the dwindling stock at the Sunnyside Farms Market.

In December, the farm stopped selling the marbled Kobe-style beef produced from Wagyu cattle, selling off what was once the largest herd on the East Coast.

The property that is up for sale has cascading irrigation ponds, extensive dry-stacked stone walls, barns, a stable, several greenhouses and seven tenant or guest houses. Extensive orchards are planted with heirloom apples, peaches, cherries and berries, and there are a number of maintained fields with flowers and vegetables.

Of particular interest is the "fourbarn," a contemporary-style structure divided into four sections that is the heart of the farm's compost system. Cattle then chickens, sheep then pigs are moved from one pen to another every two days, adding nitrogen-rich manure to the hay bedding.

The Sunnyside Farms trademark and domain names are not for sale.