On the Horizon is a New Glarus 360 series examining larger forces that may affect New Glarus before they become everyday topics of conversation. It is not an attempt to predict the future, but to ask what may be coming, what it could mean locally and whether the community should be thinking about it now.

Walk through New Glarus and much of what defines the community is privately owned. The houses where generations of families have lived. The farms surrounding the village. The storefronts downtown. Restaurants, taverns, shops and other businesses. Even much of the physical setting that visitors associate with New Glarus depends upon decisions made by individual property and business owners.

Now consider what happens when a large portion of those assets begins changing hands within the same generation.

It is part of what has become known nationally as the Great Wealth Transfer. Research firm Cerulli Associates estimates $124 trillion will change hands in the United States through 2048, including approximately $105 trillion going to heirs. Nearly $100 trillion is expected to originate with Baby Boomers and older generations. “Eventually, most of the wealth owned by older generations in the U.S. will be either donated or passed down,” Cerulli researcher Chayce Horton said.

But in New Glarus, the more interesting question may not be who inherits the money.

It may be what happens when New Glarus itself changes hands.