‘Breathtaking’ mountaintop home for sale is NC’s priciest. It started with a $1.2M deal.

A mansion perched atop a 5,000-foot ridge in the North Carolina mountains and offering views of Grandfather Mountain, other peaks and even uptown Charlotte, went on the market for $29.75 million this week.

The price of the lodge-style estate in Linville — about 82 miles northwest of Charlotte — tops all other homes for sale in the Carolinas, according to Premier Sotheby’s International Realty.

“The views are unbelievable,” agent Marilyn Wright of the Asheville office of Premier Sotheby’s International Realty told The Charlotte Observer on Wednesday about the 5.6-acre Lazy Bear Lodge estate in the gated Linville Ridge community.

“Sunrises over Grandfather Mountain, spectacular sunsets, views of downtown Charlotte would be at the top of the list,” said Wright, the exclusive listing agent for the home at 1907 Flattop Cliffs Drive.

The home went on the market on Tuesday.

Chuck Weber, listed in Avery County tax records as the owner of the home, died at the lodge in June 2021 at age 73 after battling cancer, according to his obituary.

READ MORE: See more of the NC mountaintop home with jaw-dropping views

Weber amassed a fortune building luxury apartments in Fayetteville and other communities, his family said in the obituary. Public records also list an address for Weber in Fayetteville, and he also had lived in Ponte Vedra, Florida.

He loved to dance the Carolina Shag, play golf and spend time with friends, his family said.

According to its listing, the property has “room for a round of golf” and has a golf cart garage.

A spokeswoman at the Avery County Tax Assessor’s office who looked up Weber’s property tax information for the Observer on Wednesday said the asking price astonished her.

“We’ve never had a home sell for anywhere near that price,” the spokeswoman said.

Another home in Avery County once sold for $5 million and a second one for $6 million, representing the largest home sales ever in the county, the spokeswoman said.

Owner paid $1.2 million for the home

Weber bought the estate for $1.2 million in 2018 from Scottsdale Corp., a Florida-based investment company that has other property holdings in Avery County, according to the tax assessor’s office.

Weber bought a more-modest home on the site, which explains the lower price he paid, the spokeswoman for the tax assessor’s office said. He razed the home to build his estate.

The home has an appraised value of $6.1 million, the spokeswoman said.

Weber’s home was gated within the gated Linville Ridge community, and he wouldn’t let county tax appraisers onto the land, the spokeswoman said.

That is not uncommon, she said. In such cases, assessors rely on photographs of a property besides previous sales of the home and its acreage, she said.

On Wednesday, employees in the tax assessor’s office perused interior and exterior photographs of the home on Premier Sotheby’s website and spotted features they didn’t know existed and that might up the assessed value, including the golf cart garage, the spokeswoman said.

County tax records still list Weber as the owner, the tax assessor’s office spokeswoman said.

Waterfall, pavilion on ‘an entire mountaintop’

Wright, the listing agent, said in a phone interview that Weber significantly increased the value of the property by purchasing and incorporating three adjoining parcels.

“It’s an entire mountaintop,” she told the Observer. “It’s breathtaking.”

And Weber installed millions of dollars of artwork in the home, millions of dollars in statues on the property — 34 in all — and millions of dollars in custom furnishings, Wright said.

Besides its 340-degree views of peaks in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the mansion includes an extensive Western art collection spanning three centuries, European antiques and handcrafted Adirondack elements, according to Sotheby’s.

A two-story waterfall graces the entrance to the home, which also has a separate 3,000-square-foot party pavilion and a “Hobbit-esque” guest house.

The 1,006-square-foot guest house and exercise home are carved into the side of the mountain with decking overlooking the forest.

According to a Sotheby’s news release Tuesday night, the five-bedroom, five-bathroom lodge includes “intricate woodwork with cypress post and paneling, golden birch and poplar and cherry barks that complement locally sourced stone.”

Detailed designs

Lazy Bear Lodge has a 25-foot-high timber-framed great room; a gourmet kitchen with custom alder cabinets by Banner’s Cabinets; and a dining room with a custom mesquite dining table by Taber & Company, custom chairs by Century and John Coleman’s Addih-hiddisch, Hidatsa Chief bronze sculpture.

A reading room overlooks a custom wrought steel railing sculpted by Kevin Clark.

“Every feature and work of art was so detailed in design,” Wright, the Sotheby’s agent, said in an email. “The setting of the home and gardens, as well as the folly house for social gatherings and the Hobbit house for practicing golf and daily workout.”

Weber and his life partner, Carol Strickland, “hosted the best of parties,” Wright said. “And since he has passed, Carol finds it doesn’t make sense for her to keep the home. It needs to be enjoyed to the fullest.”