Homeless? Kluge house under foreclosure-- again
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Glen Love was the first house in a development that was to mingle vineyards and luxury homes.file photos by County, Lisa Provence
The first foreclosure in Patricia Kluge's life is now also her latest. And this time it's personal: the house in which she and her husband live.
A year ago, the 6,600-square-foot abode on 2.9 acres, dubbed "Glen Love," came under foreclosure when Kluge's development partners went bankrupt. She and her husband, Bill Moses, reclaimed the house at auction in front of the Albemarle Courthouse, and the couple moved in late last spring.
The one and only residence in their planned high-end agri-subdivision, Vineyard Estates, the house may be sold by Sonabank, which claims default on a $3.675 million loan. Located at 2621 Coopers Lane, the place is currently assessed at $2,496,500.
Since Glen Love first went up for auction in March 2010, the beleaguered couple have endured several foreclosure auctions that have taken their vineyards, winery, and equipment, as well as Kluge's Albemarle House mansion and the 511-acre Vineyard Estates subdivision, most of which Sonabank took back in late January.
In 2006, tracts in the first phase of Vineyard Estates were priced from $300,000 to $2.75 million. It's unclear from the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors website whether any of the other 24 lots in Vineyard Estates are for sale. Neither Moses nor Sonabank returned a reporter's call.
As for Albemarle House, the nearly 24,000-square-foot residence that Kluge built during her marriage to billionaire John Kluge was listed for sale in 2009 for $100 million. After a series of price cuts and a foreclosure that handed it over to Bank of America in mid-February, it's back on the market for $16 million.
The 98-acre spread is currently getting eyed by another billionaire, possible presidential candidate Donald Trump. The Donald quietly bought 216 acres that essentially make up its front yard, and he has said that he also wants Albemarle House. But he thinks Bank of America has put too high a price on it, according to one of his representatives.
On April 7, Trump bought the bulk of another Kluge property, the Kluge Estate Winery and Vineyard, for $6.21 million, with Loudoun developer Sal Cangiano paying $1.12 million for three remaining parcels, bargain prices given that Farm Credit had lent $35 million on the 900-acre property.
The Glen Love auction takes place May 18, and bidders should bring $20,000 or 10 percent of the sale price, whichever is lower. The proceedings will be handled by a Virginia Beach-based law firm called Samuel I White PC.
21 comments
In the early stages of this development I rode around and couldn't believe the flights of fancy envisioned for this piece of land. It had no views or mature trees, only small scrub oaks. This was destined for failure from the first dollar spent.
Ill gave her $1000000.00 cash (confederate of course)
I second Sherlock's soon to be deleted post.
Not Landed, who sold it to Kluge?
I keep hoping that Fuel will reopen so I can order another $10 sandwich that take 2 bites to finish. Apparently she will be opening them across the USA! Oh wait! Nice ta-tas and a smart ex-husband does NOT make you a wise business person?
At least she never had anything to do with UVa!
She managed to be on the UVA Board of Visitors some years ago.
I'd like to see the balance sheet that qualified Kluge for a mortgage worth 150% of her home's appraised value as her "wine empire" began circling the drain. Or any loan at all for that matter. Prior published stories have suggested that virtually everything she owned, down to the curtains in Albemarle House was already securing loans in or on the brink of default. If the lender was intentionally misled and suffers a loss, as it seems guaranteed to do here, there can be serious and far-reaching consequences, both civil and criminal. Sonabank is FDIC insured, and that puts the taxpayer ultimately on the hook if loans like this one cause it to fail. At the very least, someone in their mortgage division should be applying for unemployment come Monday.
Well there's always that safe place for homeless,The Haven they can stay at.
I don't want to be mean or snarky, but I can't help but think of Hyacinth and Richard looking at the photo above.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/suffolk/content/images/2007/10/23/keeping_up_fence_...
"If You're a Numb Broad, Get Rich Friends" an autobiography by Patricia Kluge and ghostwritten by someone with some talent
Biff, I thought EXACTLY the same thing! "That's Boo -Kay!".
You are all having a good time at her failures. I wonder how you would feel if all of her risk taking had succeeded and she was responsible for 500 or more good paying jobs?
I would not have given her the loans. I am sorry that she bit off more than she could chew and choked on it.
She donated a lot of money and had she suceeded she most certainly would have donated more.
At least she tried.
Enjoy your glee. On her worst day she will probably live better than 99% of the commenters here.
Its not like she will be forced to move to Belmont...
The FDIC is self-supporting. The other banks pay for it. You would think they would have an interest in better regulation, but irrationality exists in many corners of the free market. It's either that or one group of banks is gaming another group.
If she did support charity efforts then I applaud her. I can't help but wonder though - if she had donated that money to political campaigns instead would she be in this (apparent) mess? Can you say Biscuit Run?
(That is sarcasm folks. I am certainly NOT against donating to charities and I AM certainly against political campaign contributions.)
The FDIC is self-supporting. The other banks pay for it. You would think they would have an interest in better regulation, but irrationality exists in many corners of the free market.
Sheila Bair - head of the FDIC - is quite interested in reforms and has indicated that reserves should be increased, and FDIC premiums as well, going forward. She's indicated support for tiered premiums to better reflect systemic risk (to discourage TBTF). Bair is an old-school (real) Republican - the genuinely fiscally conservative type - who would be unelectable in the current GOP - she does support sensible regulation.
However, the problem, as with so many things, is that we have very short attention spans and memories. Remember the "surpluses as far as the eye can see"? You know, the ones that implied we must return all surpluses in the form of tax cuts, lest we actually accidentally manage to pay down the debt and have room in the budget for - gasp - government programs! Well, the same thing happened to the FDIC fund: during the bubble even fundamentally unsound banks had enough cash flow to hide their basic insolvency and so without any failures the insurance fund seemed...full and unnecessary...which apparently again implies that we must start to refund FDIC premiums to the banks. Now, when the tide has gone out and we find out who is swimming naked (eg, CITI), the FDIC is out of money (and is borrowing from the government).
To bring this back on topic: Moses and Kluge just had bad timing; if they'd been three years earlier, they'd have made out like bandits, having successfully left over-extended borrowers holding the bag for all the money extracted here - and Pat would be sitting pat in Albemarle House, as an acknowledged "genius". These people - the successful "finance" people - aren't generally geniuses - they're just in the right place at the right time - like a Lotto winner.
That hopey-changey thing isn't working for the filthy rich either.
I don't know Realist. Osama Bin Laden was pretty rich and the Obama administration sure ushered in a different era for him!
Under Bush he murdered 3,000 Americans and thumbed his nose at the US repeatedly.
Obama sent him to the bottom of the ocean.
You pick which side you're on.
@meanwhile:So let me get this straight. If you support Obama's policies, you're against the terrorists and if you oppose Obama's policies, you support the terrorists, i.e. you're on their "side". Interesting logic and when I say "interesting", I'm being very charitable. I assume, based on your "logic", that W just didn't want to capture him, that somehow his leadership resulted in our intelligence community either not knowing what the heck they were doing or W somehow passed the word to them to just go through the motions and not really pursue Bin Laden in a serious manner. I suppose you have no opinion on Clinton, in between BJs, being offered Bin Laden on a silver platter and, based on his crackerjack legal experts, refusing to take him into U.S. custody. I was impressed though at Obama landing in those helicopters at the Bin Laden compound and blowing him away with his M4 carbine. Very impressive. Oh, what's that you say? Obama actually didn't kill Bin Laden? It was really well-trained heroic Navy SEALs who accomplished that? I guess Obama's community-organizing experience played no part in the operation.
I hope you continue to enjoy the Obama Kool-Aid and ignore the reality of his horrible policies. Enjoy the horrendous unemployment, the $4/gallon (and rising) gas prices and, assuming it's not ruled unconstitutional or repealed, the destruction of our health care system and the institution of health care rationing, i.e. Death Panels. You can always stick your head in the sand and repeat the mantra "It's George Bush's fault, it's George Bush's fault" When good things happen, Obama gets the credit. When bad things happen, it's George Bush's responsibility. Yeah, right. Btw, how many moons revolve around the planet you live on? Mine has one.
Obama was on the back nine when the real heroes finished the job that was started 9/12/2001.
The only thing I give him credit for is for not woosing out...
I am actually starting to feel sorry for her!
Really, you are feeling sorry for her? why do people bring up her charity giving, some of which she committed to , and didn't deliver. She didn't do it out of the kindness of her heart , it was just for tax reasons! They over borrowed, over spent and treated staff and local business people badly. She doesn't deserve any more.