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America’s most annoying real-estate mogul has snapped up the last parts of the Kluge estate in Charlottesville, Va. that he didn’t already own.
Donald Trump, who last year bought the Kluge winery, vineyard and much of the surrounding land on the 7,378-acre property, now owns Patricia Kluge’s mansion, Albemarle House. Trump closed on the house yesterday for a number far below Kluge’s original asking price, the Post reported:
He initially tried to purchase the house at a foreclosure auction last year. But Bank of America, which held a $22.8 million mortgage on the home, bought the property back for $16 million. Trump had been negotiating with the bank since then and finally reached a deal on Wednesday.
“The banks had [the estate] on the books for hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Eric Trump, Donald Trump’s son. “We were able to reassemble it for a small fraction of that.”
When Kluge put her entire estate up for sale in 2009, she hoped to fetch $100 million. Instead, she had to settle for about $8 million from the lattice-haired New York developer last year for the winery and its equipment.
Kluge, who built up the estate with her divorce settlement from the entrepreneur John Kluge, had some successes as a vintner, with her wines receiving several awards that helped establish Virginia as a burgeoning wine producer. But bad decisions and a terrible economy tanked Kluge’s business, leading to the initial sale to Trump last year. (In D.C., Trump is also developing the Old Post Office into a luxury hotel. He hasn’t even struck the first beam, but already the restaurants are “world-renowned.”)
And now that the Donald has the house, his son, Eric, shared some ideas with the Post:
Among the options the Trumps are considering are developing the land around the estate into a PGA Tour-worthy golf course, turning the house into an elegant inn or flipping the house and selling it along with 400 or 500 acres while keeping an operational vineyard. Eric Trump said several world-class golf course architects already have looked over the property, although he refused to say which ones. Arnold Palmer once designed a nine-hole golf course on the grounds.
Whatever it is, it’ll be yooooge. And you’ll probably need to present your birth certificate inside a gold lamé frame just to get in the door.
