Ten months ago, Vineyard Estates LLC—Bill Moses and Patricia Kluge—bought back a foreclosed lot of their Meadows Estates with a $3.67 million bid, roughly $1 million greater than the assessed value. Now, the couple may be headed back to the steps of the Albemarle County Circuit Court, where five more Meadows Estates lots are slated for a January 11 auction. The lots total more than 120 acres, and are assessed at roughly $7 million. Bill Moses was not immediately available for comment.
The January auction, prompted by Vineyard Estates’ default on an $8.2 million loan from locally lienholder Sonabank, is the latest in a year of financial struggles for the Kluge brand. Ealier this month, Farm Credit of the Virginias purchased the Kluge Estate Winery & Vineyard for $19 million at a foreclosure auction; the bank held a lien on the property to the tune of $34.8 million. Farm Credit also holds a secondary lien on Albemarle House, the former home of Kluge and Moses. Albemarle House is currently listed at $24 million, down from a hefty $100 million initial asking price.
After buying back a Meadows Estate lot in March, Bill Moses told C-VILLE that Vineyard Estates LLC had spent the last year "working to get control of the [Meadows Estates] project back." In a statement then, Kristin Moses Murray said the project was "developed with partners."
"As a result of the collapse in the real estate market, some of those other partners went bankrupt, and many of the remaining investors abandoned their continuing obligations," said Moses Murray. "In short, they have gone under and we have not."
