It’s been a tough couple of weeks for Patricia Kluge and husband William Moses. To wit: The couple is involved in a lawsuit and a foreclosure sale, and the price of their Georgian-style estate has been slashed in half.
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On Monday, a foreclosure auction was held for Lot 5 of Meadows Estates, assessed at $2.7 million and developed by Vineyard Estates, LLC—Bill Moses and Patricia Kluge. The couple ultimately bought back the lot for $3.6 million. |
Let’s start with the lawsuit. Last Friday, Albemarle County Circuit Court Judge Thomas H. Wood decided that a $1.9 million breach-of-contract lawsuit brought by real estate agency Frank Hardy, Inc. against Vineyard Estates, LLC—a concern of Kluge’s and Moses’—would advance to an April 2 trial date.* Hardy filed the suit in February 2009 after Vineyard Estates contracted another real estate firm, Sotheby’s, on two listing agreements inked by Hardy and Vineyard Estates in 2007.
Attorneys for Vineyard Estates say that a series of e-mails in April 2008 acted as a termination agreement that would release Hardy from his role in exchange for $25,000.
“When they dismissed Frank Hardy, there was some discussion about a settlement and they claimed that that discussion can constitute a legal settlement in the case,” says D. Brock Green, Hardy’s attorney. “And we claim it does not, that there was never any kind of meeting of the minds that they would pay a certain amount of money by a certain time and that Frank Hardy would therefore release his rights under both of the contracts.”
Ronald Tweel, attorney for Vineyard Estates, disagrees. After the hearing, Tweel said that his client would be “open to all possibilities,” as far as out-of-court settlement goes. In the event the case goes to trial, Green says he will bring “many witnesses” to testify. Both sides agree that no money—neither a $25,000 termination fee nor the $1.9 million that Hardy now seeks—exchanged hands.
The recent Kluge-Moses financial woes don’t end there. A foreclosure sale for Lot 5 of the Meadows Estates was held on Monday in front of the Albemarle County Circuit Court. The property is assessed at $2.7 million, and the auction required a deposit of $360,000 from interested bidders. (For a recap of the foreclosure sale, read the This Just In blog at c-ville.com.)
In a prepared statement, Kluge Estate Winery and Vineyard spokeswoman Kristin Moses Murray says the sale “is on only one of the 24 lots and will reduce the debt overhang for purposes of reconfiguring and restructuring the full project for Kluge’s future development interests.
“Like most real estate projects, it was developed with partners,” continues Murray’s statement. “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. In short, they have gone under and we have not.”
Anyone looking for signs of collapse on the real estate market need look no further than Patricia Kluge’s local estate, Albemarle House. In October, the estate was put on the market for a nearly record-breaking $100 million. The 300-acre estate—complete with barn, a guest house, eight bedrooms and 13 bathrooms—is now listed by Sotheby’s International Realty at $48 million, a price reduction of more than 50 percent.—with additional reporting by Cathy Harding
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*Clarification: A previous version of this story read "…Vineard Estates—Kluge and Moses…"
