Lumber Firm Raises Millions in Va. Land Auction
9/30/99
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Title: Lumber Firm Raises Millions in Va. Land Auction
Source: The Roanoke Times, Va.
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: September 30, 1999
Byline: Mike Gangloff
As the steam from three days of spirited bidding lifted, the clearest
results of the Great Blue Ridge Mountain Auction - a huge sale of
largely undeveloped mountain land along the New River - were numbers.
Thirteen thousand acres sold.
About $17.4 million raised.
Per-acre prices ranged from $453 to $10,300, with the smallest
riverfront parcels - five acres - averaging $10,000 per acre.
"Everybody's pretty tickled," said Jim Woltz of Woltz & Associates,
the Roanoke company that organized what was described as the largest
sale of its kind in Virginia this century. Auction workers were still
cleaning up, he added - "We've got 1,000 signs scattered around three
states that need to get collected."
Nearly 1,000 people from 18 states registered to make bids on land
the Dixon Lumber Co. accumulated during more than seven decades of
operation in and near Galax. Hundreds more turned out to watch at the
Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in Hillsville, where the auction ran
Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
By the end of the auction, 126 buyers had purchased 194 parcels
ranging in size from several in-town lots smaller than an acre to
tracts of more than 500 acres. Most of the buyers were Virginians,
with North Carolinians making up the largest out-of-state group,
Woltz said. Some buyers were from as far away as Florida.
What will happen to the land - which stretches across 13 counties and
includes about six miles of the New River's banks - remains to be
seen.
Grainne Dumont, who has lived for more than 20 years in a rented
one-room house on Dixon land in Floyd County, said she is considering
filing an adverse possession, or squatter's rights, claim for
ownership of the land. She began looking into the unusual legal
action after learning she could not buy just the land around the
house, which has no electricity or running water, but would have to
bid on a larger parcel.
"I haven't heard anything," Dumont said Monday. "I'm waiting for
eviction papers."
The land where Dumont lives was bought by Floyd County businessman
Earl Frith, who said he paid $414,750 for several parcels that total
314 acres. Once the sale is closed, which could take up to 30 days,
Frith said he plans to log the white pine growing on the property.
As for Dumont, Frith said he had no objection to working out some
agreement to let her stay - if she isn't living on the only path
loggers can take along the steep terrain.
"We may have a need to go through where she's living," Frith said.
William Guffey, who teaches carpentry at a North Carolina community
college, said he and a group of friends were outbid when they tried
to buy a riverside base for their canoe trips. Though disappointed,
Guffey said he is more hopeful of finding something to buy now that
the auction is over.
"I know all those people didn't buy all that land just to live on
themselves," he said.
James Nuckolls, medical director of Carilion Health System, said he
is planning a conservation easement for 466 Grayson County acres he
bought for $510,000. The easement, a deed restriction that limits
development but brings several tax advantages, also may cover
Nuckolls' adjoining 350-acre farm.
Michael Van Ness, executive director of the Western Virginia Land
Trust, said he expected 750 to 1,000 acres of Dixon land to end up in
conservation easements.
"We did not have as many conservation buyers get the property as we
had hoped. Some things fell through in literally the last minute,"
Van Ness said.
The land trust and other conservation groups tried to raise money to
buy land themselves - planning to attach easements and resell it -
but donations came to only about $36,000, Van Ness said. The groups
hope to set up a regional land acquisition fund for the next time
sensitive land becomes available.
The Dixon land was concentrated in Grayson, Carroll and Wythe
counties, but also included areas of Floyd, Giles, Bland, Smyth,
Highland, Buchanan and Alleghany counties, as well as Alleghany
County, N.C., and Pendleton and Pocahontas counties in West Virginia.