Photo courtesy of William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty

A private island in Branford has sold for $3 million.

Wheeler Island, in the Thimble Islands off Connecticut’s prized Shoreline area, is 0.77 acres and hosts a fully-furnished, eight-bedroom Victorian home built in 2001.

Porches with sweeping views wrap the home on its first two levels, and a lantern tops the 3-story structure, itself perched on the rocky island’s highest point. The island also boasts a small, sandy beach and two docks that give access to the home by boat and water taxi from Branford’s Stony Creek village.

The island also boasts solar power, generators and a hookup to town water and sewer in addition to its plentiful, grassy lawns.

The island is the fourth in the area that William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty agent Margaret Muir has sold in the last three years.

The other two Thimbles sold were Belden and Jepson Islands. Belden sold in May 2021 for $1,250,000; it has a furnished four-bedroom cottage on 1 acre with 2 acres of deeded adjacent shellfish beds. Jepson was the first to sell in July 2020 for $715,000; it includes a furnished two-bedroom contemporary home with natural materials and walls of glass.

Christine and Edmund Stoecklein were the sellers. Christine is the widow of John Svenningsen, founder of Amscan Holdings Inc. They initially came to the Thimbles in the 1970s; she purchased many of the islands in the late 1990s and early 2000s after his death.

Muir’s other island sale was Green Island, owned by a different seller than the others, closed at the end of December  for $2.35 million. It hosts a home designed by architect Duo Dickinson.