Pass by a house designed by architect Eugene Bradbury, and you may not see the home for the trees. Jefferson-informed dwellings like the Trotter House on University Circle or the ill-fated Compton House, torn down in early 2008 in a UVA controversy, showed Bradbury’s knack for blending a home’s boundaries into the land that surrounds it.
|
|
The five-bedroom house at 1214 Rugby Road sits on more than two acres of land and a sizeable bit of local architectural history. But, at $5 million-plus, can it shake recent real estate trends?Spot a real estate listing for a Bradbury house, however, and it leaps clear off the page. Last week, a Bradbury-designed home at 1214 Rugby Road became the most expensive residential listing in the city, at an asking price of $5.3 million—more than twice its assessed value of $2.5 million, which is also the asking price of the second most expensive pad within city limits.
At a time when median home prices in the city are holding steady at $248,000 and a million-dollar-plus price tag means an average 240 days on the market, the house seems ready to use architectural history to buck market trends. The five bedroom, brick-and-stucco home was built around 1909 and reconstructed after a 1921 fire. In 2009, the local branch of Preservation Virginia named the house its “Private Residential Preservation of the Year,” following a year-long renovation by Dagliesh Gilpin Paxton Architects and a few updates—a limestone terrace and 1,800-bottle wine cellar.
“We’ve had a lot of strong interest and several showings,” says Sally Du Bose, the agent representing the home for Virginia Real Estate Partners. “It’s one of a kind.”
Current owners Kevin and Beverly Sidders bought the home in late 2006 for $2.9 million. Prior to the home’s renovation, Daniel Bluestone—a Bradbury expert and professor of architectural history at UVA—spoke with the Sidderses about the home’s history.
“It has an incredible restoration that will insure that it will be around for another 100 years,” says Bluestone via e-mail. “It is an excellent piece of property in excellent shape.”
While the condition and history of the house may be enough to justify its price tag to some, one wonders how prohibitive $5 million is, no matter the figure behind the design. The first-quarter market report from the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors lists the average price per finished square foot of Charlottesville homes at $159; the Bradbury house is roughly $897. And while the local architect’s style focused on environmental harmony, the price on his Rugby Road design may yield a few interesting facts as to whether the local high-end housing market is out of the woods.
C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.
