Heads up to anyone in the market for a house by the lake — Terrence Wall’s place is for sale.
Wall, one of Wisconsin’s most influential real estate developers, and a major Republican campaign donor who made a failed run for the U.S. Senate in 2010, is asking $3.45 million for the 6,431-square-foot, two-story, “techno-modern” Georgian-style house of brick and stone in the village of Maple Bluff.
Wall’s home is the most expensive listing in the Dane County market right now, and has the second-most square footage.
The runners-up for most expensive luxury listings are two homes listed for $2.2 million each, both on Highway M (3739 and 4729) in Middleton; and two homes listed at $2 million each: one at 3387 Timber Lane in Verona and the other at 4212 Highway J in Black Earth.
The Timber Lane home, owned by Louis Gander, is the largest listing in Dane County — a jaw-dropping 14,126 square feet — compared with 5,200 square feet for the $2 million home in Black Earth and 4,321 square feet and 5,225 square feet, respectively, for the two $2.2 million listings.
Madison-based independent real estate agent Shelly Sprinkman, who specializes in high-end properties, said Dane County’s luxury market saw a busy fall selling season, with four listings over $1 million in Maple Bluff alone.
Sprinkman handled a lakefront listing — in Fox Bluff near Bishops Bay — that closed at more than $2 million last year.
“The majority of the high-end homes that had been on the market in the past year have been absorbed,” Sprinkman said. “We had a huge influx of physicians and others relocating in the fall.”
Jolenta Averill, broker/owner of Lake City Homes in Madison, said Dane County lakefront homes in 2013 hit their highest level of sales in 11 years at 119, based on real estate records of listed properties.
Sales of Dane County luxury homes, or those priced at $1 million or more, totaled 26 in 2013. And luxury sales last year in the fourth quarter, between October and December, were the most since 2005.
The problem now, agents said, is the same thing that faces much of the market — a lack of inventory.
“I think the houses that were staged and priced appropriately and marketed well have all sold,” said Sprinkman, co-owner of Sprinkman Real Estate. “Right now, I’m working with some high-end buyers, and we’re really challenged in finding homes for sale.”
According to its listing, Wall’s home has four bedrooms, five-and-a-half bathrooms, a three-car garage and a “breathtaking … grand foyer with double winding staircases that welcome guests upon entry,” plus year-round views of the Capitol and “lovely sunsets that shimmer across the lake.”
Other features of the property at 57 Cambridge Road include a professional office/library off the foyer, an “incredibly well appointed” butler’s pantry, an elevator spanning three levels, vaulted ceilings, three fireplaces and, according to the listing, between 51 and 100 feet of frontage on Lake Mendota. It’s been on the market since March.
Wall and his agent could not be reached for comment about why he was selling the house and where he plans to live next with his wife, Helen, and two children.
Public records show he doesn’t owe back taxes on the house, with only his current 2013 bill for $50,292 outstanding. The house was most recently assessed at $2,299,900 in January 2013.
But Wall, who turns 50 in June, has seen big changes in his business dealings the last few years. In April 2012, he was ousted as CEO of T. Wall Properties, the commercial real estate development and property management company he founded in Middleton in 1989, by a vote of the company’s board.
Wall, in turn, started a new company, T. Wall Enterprises, focused solely on apartment development.
Then, in September 2013,
T. Wall Properties’ board voted to give Wall control of the company’s biggest ongoing project — The Community of Bishops Bay, a multi-phase mega-subdivision under construction northeast of Middleton.
The vote transferred ownership and management of the project to the company’s primary shareholders, a group led by Wall.
As a major new residential development, Bishops Bay, which was Wall’s initiative when he was still CEO, had divided investors/board members at T. Wall Properties, with Wall’s faction wanting to run with Bishops Bay and others preferring to stick with the company’s traditional focus on office buildings.