Patricia Kluge is trying to sell her estate for a laughable, ridiculous $100M. She’ll be lucky to get a fifth of that. #
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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The realtor that gets the commission on that should be pretty happy.
With the retirement of Felicia Warburg Roosevelt Sarnoff Rogan, Madame Kluge spied a vacuum in the Virginia wine industry leadership and cantered over to fill it.
Promotion has always been her long suit and she does it well, though she has been known to overplay her hand.
When promotion of a winery is the goal, sticking a billion dollar or whatever price tag on your adjoining acreage gets you publicity.
A sale for big bucks is not impossible. John Kluge may want to go home again. Until then, renting to two students per bedroom, she has posh dormitory possibilities in Albemarle House, if she can get a special use zoning variance.
Danpi,
No realtor will get that commission. Based on the square footage, the year built and the quality of the home, I would say that there is no way in hell that the house would cost more than $300 psf to build and it has a replacement cost of roughly $8.4M. Say that the outbuildings total $3M or so. That’s $11.4M worth of buildings on 300 acres that is not worth $88 million dollars by any stretch of the imagination.
I have no idea what the division and development rights are on that property. But I think $20M would be the most I could possibly see that land being worth. At best, this is a $32M property.
Given these facts, the realtor who gets this listing is in for several years worth of headaches and wasted effort. Because the buyer clearly has an absurd idea of what the property is worth, which is so far away from reality that it doesn’t look terribly likely that she’s going to make a deal with anyone. Someone probably has stars in their eyes here and thinks that they’re going to be able to retire to Tahiti when they close this sale but its never going to happen like that.
If I was Mrs Kluge I’d sell it to Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Oprah, Warren Buffett. or any Billionaire with lots of money to spend. and the real estate agent who sells the propety is going to be set for years. and By the way waldo or any one else know who is the person who is going to be the agent for the land?
It’s my understanding that PK only owns the house and a few acres around it, and that John Jr owns the vast remainder of the acreage around it. When he came into the trust, he had the golf course removed in order to raise horses.
Pure speculation, of course, but perhaps Jr wanted to sell his part, and so PK had to sell hers also? The price is beyond ridiculous, and the house’s infrastructure is dated. I think she’ll probably sell the vineyards and winery too, unless she’s planning on settling in at Ellerslie and ruling her diminished kingdom from there.
Ms. Kluge is the same one who thought a fancy restaurant at a gas station was going to go national? Who thought Cville was just busting at the seams for a full service gas station that had and attendant who would get your Latte while you sat in your Prius?
I was actually joking about the realtor. Hell, she could not keep a chef or manager at the station. All she really was able to do was burn up about 100K in losses a month.
formercvilleresident,
Why would any of those people pay 4 or 5 times more than the property is worth? What makes you think that any of them have a desire to relocate to Charlottesville? If any of them did want to live here then they could buy some other large parcel of land and build exactly what they want for a fair price, rather than living in Patricia Kluge’s dream house from 1989 or so at 5 times what it is really worth. The people that you named all have the distinction of having made their own fortunes. They didn’t create those fortunes by being foolish with money. Patricia Kluge, while a very nice lady by all accounts, is distinguished from those other names by the fact that she required no business sense to acquire her money and true to type she has pissed through the money on one ‘investment’ after another.
Voice of reality,
It would be awkward and difficult for her to sell the vineyard because when she sold those few houses in her ‘vineyard estates’ development she was advertising that each parcel came with a certain acreage of vines which her winery would harvest each year and make into a custom vintage for each homeowner. Year after year after year. Kinda hard to fulfill that contract if you don’t have a winery and vineyard any more. And who in their right mind would want to buy that winery and vineyard if they had to keep that ill-advised contract as part of the deal?
Jack, my info might be wrong, but the last I’d heard, no lots had sold yet in Vineyard Estates. Think one lot (not house)was under offer, but can’t say for sure if it was indeed purchased and closed on by a buyer. Perhaps so.