news-record.com

What’s the difference between Forest Oaks and Sedgefield?

Oh, let’s say about $5.5 million or so.

Right now, the most expensive house for sale in the Forest Oaks Country Club neighborhood — a subdivision dating to the 1960s in southeast Guilford County — is perhaps its biggest, a 6,600-square-foot colonial on the 15th hole. The asking price is $549,000.

Contrast that with the stately Sedgefield Country Club community, founded in the 1920s, where the Wyndham Championship returned last week after 31 years at Forest Oaks.

Not even the Wyndham’s total purse of $5.1 million would be enough to buy the Alamance Road mansion called Adamsleigh that faces the 12th hole and backs up to the 14th and 15th holes. The price is $5.9 million.

Calling Adamsleigh a mansion is no exaggeration. Finished in 1930, it has 33 rooms, including 10 bedrooms, and totals 15,000 square feet. The estate covers 13.5 acres that include pools, a lake, tennis courts, a stone gazebo and a five-car garage.

A smaller mansion on the first fairway on Rockingham Road, built of the same Tudor design and occupying three large lots, went on the market this week for $3.75 million.

Across the fairway, another Tudor beauty built in 1924 and on 3.29 acres next to the clubhouse complex is for sale for $2.75 million.

Four other houses in Sedgefield — a horse riding and golfing community with a mixture of old and more recent houses — are priced at $1 million or more.

Real estate has always been pricey in Sedgefield. Along with Irving Park, it tends to draw Guilford County’s well-to-do. But give the Wyndham’s return some credit for at least one price increase.

Until recently, Adamsleigh was priced at $4.8 million by its owners, heirs of Allen Watkins, who lived there until his death in 2003. The heirs have increased the amount by $1.1 million, even though the house has been unsold and unoccupied for three years.

“They are absolutely positive, because of the Wyndham, the price should go up,’’ says real estate agent Lynn Black, who has the listing for Yost & Little Realty.

She agrees the golf tournament should have a positive impact on Sedgefield, a community whose landscaping and homes remind her of ritzy neighborhoods in Connecticut.

“I think it’s bringing an awful lot of looks,’’ she says of the tournament.

Adamsleigh — designed by Winston-Salem architect Luther Lashmit, who did the Graylyn mansion for the Bowman Gray family in the Twin City — was built in 1929-30 for John H. Adams. He co-founded in 1904 the Adams-Millis Corp. of High Point, a hosiery maker that had 3,500 employees and 16 plants when sold to Sara Lee Corp. in the late 1980s. Adams also owned the land that’s now the vast Adams Farm subdivision.

Yost & Little Realty, agent for the $3.75 million mansion on Rockingham Road, says it’s not ready yet to release details about the house. It was built in 1934 and has remained in the same family, who asked not to be identified.

From 1938 to 1976, when the Wyndham — then known as the Greater Greensboro Open — was played off and on at Sedgefield, galleries went gaga when they passed the two castles.

The smaller of the two borders a long stretch of the first fairway. Its sweeping lawn would be filled with guests of the owner sipping cocktails while watching golfers go by. A party tent and guests returned Saturday.

Adamsleigh’s $5.9 million asking price doesn’t reflect fix-up costs, agent Black says. The interior needs work. And the house comes with a hefty annual property tax bill: nearly $10,000.

But what a setting: a house with turrets and gables, huge lawn, woodlands, pools and lake. The interior features murals, fine woodwork with secret doors and bookcases, plaster ceilings and a separate barn-stable-workshop as big as some Sedgefield houses. Makers of high-class furniture have used the house to photograph their products.

Black says several people have argued that Adamsleigh is North Carolina’s second most impressive house, behind Biltmore in Asheville. That may be a stretch, but it will definitely make you say “Wow!”

Recent unchecked growth in the woodlands blocks the view of the house from the front and a good portion of the rear. But the area around the 14th green offers a good view of the house’s backside and grounds.

Bob Chrushch, general manager of Sedgefield Country Club, would like to see the club buy Adamsleigh and make it a conference center and inn. He says developers have eyed the property with the idea of removing the house and subdividing the land.

“I don’t think anyone in Sedgefield would support that,’’ he says.

“It would be a crime,’’ Black declares.

If Adamsleigh and the other mansion are just a tad too steep for you, but you’d like to live nearby, now is your chance. A house a few hundred yards from Adamsleigh, beside the 14th tee box, is also for sale. The price is only $1.25 million.

Contact Jim Schlosser at 601-9879 or beale1@clearwire.net