I wondered back in 2006, when I first saw today's estate listed, if it was a bit overpriced. It turns out I may have been right, it has gone through a major price reduction since then. Luxist reader Ryan reminded me of Edge Wood in Virginia Beach, Virginia. It is a large six bedroom home which was built in 2002 and sits on the waterfront. It has two docks, three boat lifts and a sandy beach. The compound is over three acres and has more than 21,000 total square feet of space including a large guest house. The home includes details such as a billiards room with a bar, a large art studio and a master suite with a wet bar. It is listed at $16 million, which is less than two-thirds the price it was two years ago when it was listed at $24.5 million. Experience more lush living in luxury homes and mansions or see the stars living large with celebrity homes galleries at AOL Real Estate.
In case you might be feeling a little sad for the end of summer as you head back to work, let's check out a home with nothing but beach and marshes all around. Today's home is located in Painter, Virginia and boasts some of the best Chesapeake Bay shorelines to be found anywhere. The property is 450 acres and is totally secluded from the outside world. Ospralia was built in 1992 and has four bedrooms. The 3500 square-foot home has two wings with a bridge connecting them. There are two full kitchens, one gas and one electric and four decks. The home is listed at $3.5 million.
I've got a fun one to show you today. Lioncrest is a 30,000 square foot English Tudor manor home overlooking the James River in Maidens, Virginia. The castle-like home is on over 56 acres that include formal English gardens as well as more rustic space. It looks old but the MLS says it was built in 1995. It certainly aspires to a different age with its large stone fireplaces, stone arches, use of shields and crests and a huge beamed grand hall that could easily be a setting for a scene in Harry Potter. Some of the wood and stone dates back to the 1600s and there is a concrete tiled roof. The huge house includes a tavern area, elevator, library, multi-car garages and a full apartment. The lower terrace level is home to woodworking shop, garden shop, morning room, pub, three wine cellars, rec room, sauna and more. The listing pics don't show much of the private spaces (the listing says there are nine bedrooms and 10.5 baths) and some are a bit blurry but I bet this is one fun house to tour. It is listed at $15 million.
A classic piece of Virginia acreage has just hit the market. Green Plains is a 642-acre estate in Virginia's Matthews County located 30 miles from Williamsburg. The property has a long history. It is believed Green Plains was established in the 18th century with a Colonial King's Deed (the original documents were burned in Richmond during the Civil War). The property has been owned by just four families including the Cabots, one of Boston's first families, and former Texaco CEO and Chairman Augustus C. Long. The property is now held in The Augustus C. Long Trust, his daughter Dorothy Long is sole trustee and beneficiary of the property.
The property includes three miles along the North River in Mobjack Bay and it has deep water access via a 360-foot-long private pier. The main house is a red brick Georgian mansion with seven bedrooms. No interior pictures of the home unfortunately so we can't speculate on how the shape it is in. The property includes a four-foot wall which surrounds an acre of gardens and orchards. There are five Cape-Cod style cottages and three equestrian barns with 20 stalls and fenced paddocks. The property also includes property for hunting and fishing. Green Plains estate is listed at $22 million.
Life in the aristocratic Piedmont region of rural Virginia from Middleburg to Charlottesville, known as "Hunt Country," is of course mainly centered around equestrian pursuits. However, the preservation both of open land and historic architecture are of equal importance. Foxhunting has been popular in the area since the late 1740s, when the young George Washington rode to hounds, later establishing his own pack at Mount Vernon.
In a beautiful new book called Hunt Country Style, Kathryn Masson escorts us through some of the prettiest purlieus, including the seat of the Orange County Hunt, with which Jackie Kennedy often rode. While these days (as in any other desirable locale) there's been an influx of new money, for the most part the emphasis is still more on tradition than ostentation.
Click on the gallery below to take a tour of Hunt Country. Tally-ho!
Another huge estate has hit the market. Point Farm is located on a promontory on Virginia's Eastern Shore where two and a half miles of white-sand shoreline surround the estate's 130 acres with panoramic views across the Chesapeake Bay. The farm was purchased by Virginia Beach developer Dan Hoffler in 1989 for $2.5 million (hence the scrolled H on the home's gate). It includes a 16,000 square foot mansion and two parcels with several buildings. The large brick home, built in 2003, sits on a parcel that was assessed in 2004 at $5.4 million while the second parcel of 14.9 acres with a restored farmhouse, a boathouse, pool and pool house, tennis courts and a large garage with living quarters was assessed at $1.76 million. This means that the two parcels in 2004 amounted to $7.16 million which makes the home's price of $41.75 million quite staggering. According to this AP article, a new assessment is being undertaken.
The property includes a stable and indoor riding arena, a skeet-shooting range, three stocked saltwater ponds, a hunting lodge, a pier with a boathouse, a heated mineral-water swimming pool and a copper and slate-roofed poolhouse that has a kitchen and a terrace and a tiki bar. The estate also includes the original farmhouse which was built in 1730 and has been elarged and renovated. It has six waterview bedrooms, a kitchen and loggia, a waterside tennis court and brick terraces facing Remus Cove. The main house has a large office that opens to a media room and an exercise room with a full bath. The home includes many porches and balconies and there is a widow's walk on the roofline. The interior design style is cottage life on a grand scale with murals, chandeliers, marble and lots and lots of floral-printed furniture.
Michael Vick may have sold his Virginia house which was used in a dogfighting ring last May, but the home's infamy lives on. The home was appraised at $747,000 but sold for a bargain price of $450,000 (don't feel too sorry for Vick, he paid $34,000 for the 15 acres of land in 2002 and built the house). Since then, the house has been put up for auction but last month at the auction real estate developer Wilbur Ray Todd Jr. rejected a final bid of $747,000. Todd says he put another $50,000 into fixing up the home which had been vandalized. The property includes the main house, a basketball court, four outbuildings and many dog cages. The main house has two master suites, a media room and a two-car garage. It is now listed at $1.1 million. A non-profit called Jalie's Butterflies wants to turn it into a shelter for abused dogs. Organizers have raised over $11,000 so far. They say that if the do not raise enough money to buy the house, donations will go to the ASPCA. You can donate at The Vick House Project.
You know a listing is posh when it has aerial shots. Today's estate is located in Governor's Land, a private residential community located at the confluence of the James and Chickahominy Rivers seven miles from Colonial Williamsburg. The community is designed for low population density with 60% o f the 1,482 total acreage preserved.This new home is surrounded by 10 acres of lawns, woodland paths and is on the banks of the James River. It even comes with its own private island. The home is a 19,000 square foot residence but with just five bedrooms there is room for a whole lot of other add-on rooms like a library, home theater room, or elevator. The home is a modern version of a grand Southern home, complete with a sweeping staircase entrance. Of course older homes don't have an indoor pool and spa area, an open kitchen or a bathroom in green stone and dark wood that resembles a library. This home is listed at $10.5 million.
I don't have great pics on this one, still it's worth sharing anyway just because I have a weakness for those grand new builds and this is one of the grandest. It is located in McLean, Virginia and is a 25,000-square-foot massive faux chateau. What makes this one really stand out is the huge gold-leaf decorated coffered dome with a giant chandelier which is above a large main staircase with an ornate hand-wrought balustrade.The listing doesn't tell us how many bedrooms there are but it does have a formal dining room that seats 24, a large grand salon, media room, fitness center, wine cellar, library, staff quarters and a huge garage. It is wired with a Creston security system and its own Cad5 fiber optic phone and cable system, emergency generator and a Lutron lighting system.This home is listed at $17.5 million. I'd love to know more about this one so if anyone has any additional info please let me know in the comments.
Here's a new way to live your winery fantasy. Vineyard Estates is a real estate project in Charlottesville, Virginia on the grounds of the Kluge Estate Winery and Vineyard. Vineyard Estates is a joint venture between winemaker Patricia Kluge and First Colony Resorts and will be developed on 511 acres of the 2,000 acre vineyard property on Carter's Mountain near Monticello. More than half of the 24 planned home locations will have vineyards. There are six home styles available: Early Virginian, Georgian, Federal, Gothic, Beaux Arts and Early Modern and each home will be customized to the owner's preference both inside and outside including pools, tennis courts and other outdoor amenities.The homes vary from nearly three acres to over 32 acres and are pricey ($6 million to $23 million).
The new George Washington Distillery in Mount Vernon, Virginia is offering a chance to watch master distillers in action this week. Master distillers from liquor companies will be producing the traditional colonial-style whiskey based on Washington's recipe on authentic copper pot stills. Washington's original distillery was one of the largest in America at the time. From April to October, visitors can see costumed distillers performing traditional whiskey-making functions at the new distillery. The whiskey will eventually be for sale at the distillery after aging.
You probably wouldn't think of Colonial Williamsburg as a place to get spa treatments but the recently opened Spa of Colonial Williamsburg proves that just about every resort these days has a spa. The new spa is part of a $150-million, six-year renovation and restoration of properties in the Resort Collection of Colonial Williamsburg. The Spa of Colonial Williamsburg is in a Georgian Revival-style brick building that contains 12 private treatment rooms and three relaxation rooms as well as changing rooms. The treatments are meant to reflect the ages starting with a hot stone massage with colonial herbs to evoke the 17th century and traveling up through the modern ages with a deep pore cleansing and a particle-free, ultrasonic exfoliation. There are also manicure, pedicure and hair care services. The spa escape package includes a stay at the Resort at Williamsburg and include one spa treatment per night and starts at $222 per person.
Ice wine is usually associated with places much further north but AmRhein Wine Cellars in Virginia has taken advantage of a cold snap last fall to produce a pricey ice wine. Last November, the grapes at the AmRhein vineyards froze and so the winery harvested the grapes and used them to create the sweet desert wine. It takes more grapes and more fermentation time to create an ice wine than it does for a regular wine. The Vidal Blanc ice wine sells for $45 for a half bottle. There will be 56 cases of 12 bottles each.
It's an interesting reflection on the world's changing weather since around the time that AmRhein was enjoying their first ice wine harvest last year, wineries in more northern areas were contemplating a poor harvest.
Norfolk, Virginia is the latest town to show up on my condo radar with the announcement that construction has begun at Granby Tower, Norfolk's new condominium/townhouse project that will, at 34 stories, become one of the tallest buildings in the city. The 300-unit building will include office space and retail space as well as condos which start as low as $270,000 and go up to $2.6 million for the penthouses all of which have already been sold. The project is set to be completed in November 2009.
The latest hotel from the boutique chain, Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants is located in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington DC. The Hotel Palomar Arlington at Waterview in the Rosslyn area of Arlington, Virginia is a 154-room hotel on the Potomac with views of the water and the Washington skyline. The hotel has a contemporary and modern design. The hotel has the theme of "art in motion," which is carried out through the original artwork, a pewter ironwork grill that adorns the soaring two-story glass entranceway and featured sculpture such as the work of Mary Early, a sculptor known for her abstract three-dimensional works in the lobby. The hotel will have a restaurant, Domaso, which showcases Northern Italian food as well as a gourmet wine and cheese shop, Domasoteca, which will also host wine and cheese tastings.
The guest rooms feature the standard technological amenities such as flat panel televisions, DVD players, iPod docks and wi-fi access. Hotel amenities include spa treatments, a fitness center, and in-room yoga, Pilates and meditation channels and equipment. There are also 24 "Spa Suites" with Fuji soak tubs and Elliptical machines. Room rates will start at $339 and the hotel will open this fall.
Life in the aristocratic Piedmont region of rural 
