A South Carolina mountain house on the market since March sold a week before Thanksgiving for $6.3 million — about $2.6 million less than the original asking price but still a record for a non-waterfront property in the Lake Keowee area, the listing agent says.
The sale of 125 Scenic Crest Way in Six Mile, South Carolina, shows the local market has returned to a less frenzied, pre-pandemic level, according to Beau Sylvester of Herlong Sotheby's International Realty.
"In the pandemic market, people were jumping," he told Homes.com. "They were overlooking things that now they're paying attention to."
The nearly 11,000-square-foot home rests at the highest point in the Cliffs Springs development, about 30 miles west of Greenville. It has balcony views of South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina, Sylvester said.
The sellers, Sarah and John Garvey, hired architect Mitch Lehde in 2008 to design the six-bedroom home as a "family refuge."
The three-story estate overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains is designed around a sculpture by Raul Diaz called Casa Blanca that depicts a man on a pedestal looking at a wood carving with a home in the center. Sarah Garvey said in an interview in March that she felt a connection to the sculpture.
The couple decided to sell to move closer to their granddaughter in Chicago, and a private family matter dictated that they become more aggressive in pursuing a buyer, said Sylvester, who shared the listing with sales associate Michael Schultz of Herlong Sotheby's International Realty.
They lowered the price to roughly $7.2 million and then to about $6.8 million after noticing that homes near Lake Keowee hadn't sold for more than $7 million in about six months, according to Sylvester.
"We wanted to get the price point under $7 million, and as soon as we did that, interest spiked and we were under contract in about two months," he said.
The Garveys were pleased that the buyers intend to live in the home full-time, according to Sylvester. While the sculpture was included in the $6.3 million sale, the parties agreed to a separate transaction for furnishings and selected art pieces at an undisclosed price, he said.