Look inside lavish house for sale near Knoxville, priced at $5.5 million
Jim GainesIf your home-buying budget is 95 times the U.S. per capita income, there’s a house waiting for you on Parsonage Lane.
“The Bellamont,” as it’s dubbed, is a 7,051-square-foot house with three bedrooms, three bathrooms and three half-baths, on 17.13 acres. Designed by architect Jonathan Miller as an English-style country manor, it sits at 7520 Parsonage Lane SW, eight miles southwest of Knoxville and a mile east of Marble Springs, Gov. John Sevier’s log farmhouse.
It’s priced at $5.5 million, or an estimated $22,138 per month, according to its listing.
Judy Teasley, agent for Keller Williams Realty, says the house is like an art museum – but the exhibit is the building itself.
“The materials are unbelievable,” she said, while offering a tour of the property. “The materials in this house are the artwork.”
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Teasley said the house may remain a private home, could be used as a privately-owned resort, or would make an excellent corporate retreat. It’s divided into a guest wing – including a private coffee area – and a master wing, with common areas in the middle.
Surrounded by a scattering of other, much smaller and more modest houses in a rural setting, it’s not far off main routes to downtown Knoxville and McGhee-Tyson Airport, and is a few miles from the Smokies.
Teasley said she had already shown the property to two potential buyers after it had been on the market for two weeks.
Begun in 2013, the house took more than three years to build, Teasley said. Before the main house was finished, the property appraised at $4.5 million, she said.
Knox County property records show it valued at $1.57 million for tax purposes in 2017, up from $1.35 million the year before.
Though the main house is occupied and furnished, the property as a whole remains unfinished. The keypad-activated gate is flanked by a construction fence; piles of stone on the grounds await assembly into outbuildings. Teasley estimates finishing the property will take less than $500,000.
It’s owned by Jacqueline Dawes, owner of Brookhaven Retreat in Seymour, a private upscale women’s emotional and addiction recovery center.
Dawes currently lives in the house, but travels frequently, Teasley said. She’s unsure why Dawes is selling, but believes she intends to move closer to family members.
The work of builder Robert Dew, the house has concrete walls overlaid with limestone, Teasley said. It has a Vermont slate roof, copper gutters, several fireplaces and heavily coffered 12-foot ceilings, according to its realty listing.
The interior is decorated mostly in tones of white and light gray, but the most prominent material is marble: marble floors, including several mosaics; a solid marble bathtub; and thick marble kitchen counters. Even the heating vent covers are hand-cut marble, according to the listing.
The kitchen also features a hand-carved stone sink from Italy, while the cabinets are custom-made by Hicks Millworks.
Most of the lights are one-of-a-kind, from Fine Art Lights, Ebanista Canopy Designs, and Hector Finch Hudson Valley Lighting, the listing says.
The profusion of unique fixtures and details make the house unlike anything Teasley has seen in East Tennessee in 30 years. She describes it as a “masterpiece museum enclosed in a home.”
In the dining area, floor-length windows look out on a formal English garden. Orienting the house with southern exposure to maximize sunlight was important to Dawes, Teasley said.
“The greatest part about this house is the way the light comes shining in to all the rooms,” she said.