Bent Mountain mansion, property up for sale

Facing financial distress, the owner of a huge, nearly new mountaintop home outside Roanoke is planning to sell the property at far below its construction price, along with 900 acres of land, at a Thursday auction.

Whoever gets it could be in for a peak experience — views clear to North Carolina, total privacy and more than three times the space of a typical Roanoke Valley house.

The 7,400-square-foot home with a Bent Mountain address is in northwest Franklin County and is only 12 miles as the crow flies from downtown Roanoke.

It’s about twice that far by vehicle, which better be a four-wheel drive. A visitor winds up and down a gravel road to reach the area.

On a small, south-facing clearing sits the handsome home with sea green paint, dark red trim around the windows and a rock-faced chimney.

It sits on 7 acres. Also available are 29 contiguous parcels, two with conventional homes and 27 undeveloped. Some of the vacant land is on the road system and suitable for a home, and some is suited only for camping or hunting and reachable primarily by horse, four-wheeler or utility vehicle. There are ponds and various streams draining to the Blackwater River.

Owner Mark Oliver, who has a background in construction and remodeling, bought the land in 2004. He spent $1.5 million to $1.8 million on the massive home, which was completed in 2009, said Sam Hardy, an associate broker Woltz & Associates, the company staging the auction. It is assessed for $807,000.

However, the minimum price to buy the home and the 7 acres is going to be $578,700 and, as long as that price is reached at the auction, the home will be sold, Hardy said Monday afternoon.

“Someone’s going to get a really nice house for not so much money unless we get four or five people who want it. Might not be so inexpensive then,” Hardy said.

The owners, who are listed in land records as Mark and Kara Oliver, at one time envisioned a community of luxury mountain homes called Hunters Glen. But only the large home, which was still occupied Monday, got built.

“The downturn of the economy has reshaped the dreams and the future that the family had to develop this,” said Jim Woltz of Woltz & Associates. “They’re needing to sell it for financial reasons.”

Records of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Virginia show that Oliver filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy twice last year. Each case was dismissed within a few months for failure to file required information, records show.

The luxury mountaintop home has two stories, a basement, four bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms, three fireplaces, two garages, a theater with space for a 10-foot screen and multiple outdoor decks finished in stone.

Heating is provided by three furnaces fed by a 1,000-gallon propane tank.

There is a shaft for an elevator, though no elevator yet.

At 7,400 square feet, the dwelling is three and a half times the average size of all homes listed or sold in the Roanoke Valley during the past two years. That average is 2,100 square feet, said Laura Benjamin, who directs the Roanoke Valley Association of Realtors. Other huge homes are on the market, she said, citing a 9,500-square-foot home for sale in the city of Roanoke and a 10,466-square-foot home for sale in Botetourt County.

If you’re intrigued, consider the trade-offs. The address is far from urban services such as stores, doctors and schools. But the rural location offers a venue to hunt, fish, garden, harvest timber, farm or develop real estate. On a clear day, it is possible to see smoke rising from the Belews Creek Steam Station perhaps 80 miles to the south in Stokes County, N.C., Hardy said.

The taxes are $4,358 a year.

Even though it’s in Franklin County, Hardy said children who might live in the home can attend Roanoke County schools.

Beyond those interested in the home, the auction is “an opportunity for a variety of buyers, from cabin sites to recreational sites to hunting tracts to incredible building sites,” Woltz said.

So far, between 20 and 25 individuals or groups have viewed the home and about 30 to 35 individuals or parties have visited to see the land, Hardy said.

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