An informal agreement to turn James Island in Cohasset into conservation property fell through when the community came up about $400,000 short in fund-raising toward a $1.8 million price for the seven-acre property, according to the person brokering the deal.

Kelly Boling of The Trust for Public Land said his group had the agreement to preserve James Island — actually a peninsula jutting into Little Harbor — by buying it from the family that had wanted to build their home on the property.

John and Jane Steinmetz’s plan ran afoul of neighbors and the town Conservation Commission, and, after filing numerous lawsuits, the couple decided to sell the property for conservation through The Trust for Public Land. The price was $3 million, based on a private assessment. The couple bought the property for $1.2 million in 2014.

When Boling e-mailed in late December 2016 that he’d only been able to get commitments for $1.8 million, John Steinmetz said he and his wife “decided to take it.’’

“We’d have peace, no more litigation, and we’d move on. We thought we had a deal,’’ Steinmetz said.

Boling said the deal fell apart, though, when the fund-raising commitment dropped.

“We were very close to conserving James Island, but, in the end, an approximately $400,000 funding gap couldn’t be bridged,’’ Boling said. “The maddening thing is that folks may now just end up spending a comparable sum on the various ongoing lawsuits surrounding this property, when they could have instead been settled through a conservation transaction.’’

Boling said that if the sale had occurred, the plan was to transfer the property to the Cohasset Conservation Trust or the town, so it would be managed for conservation and passive recreation.

“Unless the neighbors or the town wish to commit sufficient funds to purchase the property, I’m not sure there’s anything more that can be done to conserve James Island,’’ he said.

Johanna Seltz can be reached at seltzjohanna@gmail.com.