Headline homes: Nashville’s top sales, March 2010

Fire sales bookend this month’s list of big-home transactions, while buyers include a Turner heir’s ex and ASCAP’s 2009 songwriter of the year [From our print edition featured in Monday's City Paper]

Email | Print By E. Thomas Wood

4220 Wallace Lane, one of two HR Properties in this month’s top 10

04-12-2010 12:05 AM —

What happened in Nashville’s luxury-home universe last month was a sometimes-hard-to-watch demonstration of Efficient Market Theory in action.

At the top of the list, a star-crossed parcel of what used to be H.G. Hill’s pasture makes its third “Headline Homes” appearance in the past two years — selling at what may have been a profit but not the windfall its initial listing price would have brought. Following that one is an auction sale that brought in almost exactly half what, back in happier times, the spec builder had hoped the house would yield. And at the bottom of the list is a deal that meant a $1 million haircut for a mortgage lender.

Largest single-family home transactions recorded in Davidson and neighboring counties in March 2010, ranked by dollar value:

1. 4812 Post Road, Nashville 37205
Buyers: Brian & Jennifer Tierney
Sale price: $1.775 million
Seller: Buckhead Properties LLC
Agent for both sides: Steve G. Fridrich (Fridrich & Clark Realty)

Plastic surgeon Brian Tierney and family are the third buyers of this 10,400-square-foot Hill Place mansion to appear in Headline Homes. Listed for $3.75 million in 2008, the home became the property of SunTrust Bank after owners John and Tracy Rankin divorced and John Rankin, a real estate developer, filed for bankruptcy. SunTrust sold it to Cornerstone Investment Inc. last year for $1.053 million, barely a third of the amount it said Rankin owed on the mortgage.

Cornerstone transferred the property to Buckhead, an affiliate, whose principals include Eric Sox, Mark King, Lane Wallace and Les Lazarus. They put it back on the market in November at $2.4 million but ended up settling for well short of that amount.

2. 830 Windstone Blvd., Brentwood 37027
Buyers: Timothy R. & Michelle D. Roberson
Sale price: $1.68 million
Seller: The Bank of Nashville
Auctioneer: E. Dwight O’Neal

Located in Brentwood’s Windstone development, this five-bedroom, six-and-a-half-bath home on 1.18 acres was originally listed at $3.3 million. When builder Dan Stern Homes Inc. filed for Chapter 7 liquidation in December, it valued the property at $2.2 million. The bank, which foreclosed last November, let auctioneer O’Neal start the bidding at $1.6 million, and it didn’t go up much from there.

Tim Roberson is a first vice president in the Cool Springs Office of Merrill Lynch. Michelle Roberson owns the Retail Therapy shop in Cool Springs.

3. 5106 Cornell Court, Brentwood 37027
Buyers: Hope G. Turner & Patrick J. Cummiskey
Sale price: $1.64 million
Seller: Bernard W. Bloemer
Seller’s agent: Jack S. Miller (Bob Parks Realty)
Buyers’ agent: Steve Condurelis III (Keller Williams Realty)

Homebuilder Bernie Bloemer constructed this Princeton Hills residence for himself in 2002. He listed it last September at $1.85 million.

Hope Turner was a buyer in the very first edition of Headline Homes in February 2008. The prior month, she took possession of a $1.7 million place on Powder Mill Road that Dollar General heir and music entrepreneur Cal Turner III had paid for under the terms of their divorce, which also called for him to pay her $10 million in cash.

Patrick Cummiskey is executive vice president at prison health firm Correct Care Solutions LLC.

4. 4220 Wallace Lane, Nashville 37215
Buyers: John T. & Hollie M. Gray
Sale price: $1.288 million
Builder/seller: HR Properties of Tennessee
Seller’s agent: Lawrence M. Lipman (The Lipman Group)
Buyers’ agent: Jodie Barringer (Fridrich & Clark Realty)

Galen Scott Haley’s HR Properties has made numerous appearances in Headline Homes with his Green Hills and Belle Meade knockdown/infill projects. This time, he’s got a twofer; see next entry.

5. 214 Heady Drive, Nashville 37205
Buyers: May C. & Gregory Ross Coleman
Sale price: $1.255 million
Builder/seller: HR Properties of Tennessee
agents: None of record

6. 1142 Sewanee Road, Nashville 37220
Buyers: Scott D. & Nan F. Smith
Sale price: $1.209 million
Sellers: John & Felicia Bass
Sellers’ agent: Newell Anatol Anderson (Village Real Estate Services)
Buyers’ agent: Betty Wentworth (Zeitlin & Co.)

7 (tie). 109 Westhampton Place, Nashville 37205
Buyer: Smythe & Cortlandt LLC
Sale price: $1.2 million
Seller: Estate of Herbert J. Schulman
Seller’s agent: Richard G. Courtney (Fridrich & Clark Realty)
Buyer’s agent: Ben Wilson (Century 21 Premier)

Smythe & Cortlandt is an interior design firm in Vero Beach, Fla. Its website says founder and principal Anthony Tinghitella is a former residential developer. This property is the second one it has bought locally in 2010, with the other one appearing to involve an adroit flip: The company paid $700,000 for 2019-B Overhill Drive in February and then sold it to Franklin American Mortgage Co. for $900,000 in March.

Herb Schulman, a pioneer in Nashville’s health care industry, passed away last year at 84. Tom Schulman, Academy Award-winning writer of Dead Poets Society and other films, handled the transaction as executor of his father’s estate.

7 (tie). 1357 Madison Creek Road, Goodlettsville 37072
Buyers: Ashley & Amanda Gorley
Sale price: $1.2 million
Sellers: Paul C. & Stacey L. Stuhrenberg
Sellers’ agent: Kathy Decker (Re/Max Choice Properties)
Buyers’ agent: Greg Cooley (Reliant Realty)

Ashley Gorley, a 1999 graduate of Belmont University’s College of Entertainment and Music Business, took home multiple honors at last year’s American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers awards ceremony. He was named songwriter of the year, and the Trace Adkins hit “You’re Gonna Miss This,” which he co-wrote, was named song of the year.

9. 3501 Hilldale Drive, Nashville 37215
Buyer: Micheal & Elizabeth Spurgeon
Sale price: $1.1 million
Sellers: Marjorie S. & Albert J. Dale III
Sellers’ agent: Jody Corley (Dale Realty Co.)
Buyers’ agent: Melanie Baker (Zeitlin & Co.)

An updated 1990s structure on the outskirts of Green Hills, this 5,900-square-foot home sold a month after it went on the market and fetched 79 percent of its $1.395 million asking price.

Micheal Spurgeon is president of Fidelity Offset Inc. in Nashville.

10. 217 Governors Way, Brentwood 37027
Buyers: Jimmy E. & Annie R. Strickland
Sale price: $1.08 million
Seller: Zeier Real Estate LLC
Seller’s agent: Vanessa Stalets (Re/Max Elite)
Buyers’ agent: Teresa Bishop (Re/Max Elite) 

In the first known “short sale” since this column made its debut more than two years ago, Zeier Real Estate appears to have turned a quick investment profit. Wells Fargo Bank instituted foreclosure proceedings last November against homeowner Steven L. Davis, who had paid $2.08 million in 2005 for the property, which sits along the golf course in the gated Governors Club development.

The agent’s listing said the lender had approved a short sale, in which the owner sells a home for less than the amount owed on the mortgage and the bank releases the owner from liability for the difference. An affiliate of Zeier Real Estate paid $925,000 for the house on Feb. 8, and the company sold it for $155,000 more than that amount on March 9.

Carrie Zeier is listed as the registered agent of Zeier Real Estate. She is an agent with Keller Williams Realty in Green Hills and is married to Eric Zeier, the former All-American quarterback at the University of Georgia who played for three different NFL teams. He is now a vice president with Bank of America Home Loans locally and, during football season, serves as a color analyst for the Georgia Bulldogs’ radio network.