Remember when you used to scrimp and save to buy race car parts and tires?
Or, when you scrimped and saved to attend races?
Or, when you scrimped and saved to buy or build a house?
Do you remember when our fellow RR member, Dave Marcis moved down to Avery's Creek, North Carolina from Wisconsin with wife, Helen and for years lived in a trailer (mobile home) on the hill above his small race shop? Dave scraped his pennies together to finance his racing and support his family. Eventually, there was a nice looking, modest home overlooking Dave's modest race shop.
Just north of Charlotte we have the huge Lake Norman (built to cool Duke Power Company's nuclear station) . In the towns and burbs surrounding the lake have sprung up many race shops. Over the years the shores of Lake Norman have become home to NASCAR drivers, owners and crew members. Donald Trump recently bought one of the golf clubs on the Lake.
In fact, Lake Norman became so infamous in the Charlotte region for its NASCAR residents that the local Charlotte bankers and mortgage lenders derisively refer to the region as "The Redneck Riviera" behind the backs of those NASCAR folk whose homes they have financed.
The Denver, NC area, which at one time was home to Richard Howard, savior of the Charlotte and Atlanta speedways, once had a lakeside campground for blue collar families. That campground, Holidayland , had 418 permanent trailer sites for the same folk who once bought the race tickets and made NASCAR so popular that today's drivers, unlike Dave Marcis, have become millionaires and no longer live in trailers.
Evidence of this big shift presented itself to me in this morning's Charlotte Observer newspaper. On the right side of the front page was the always liberal Observer coverage of the first Obama- Romney Presidential debate.
Just below the fold, on the left side of the front page was an article detailing the purchase of the most expensive home ever sold in the ten county Charlotte M.L.S. (Multiple Listing Service) region. The purchaser of the 13,000 square foot, $7.5 million mansion is no stranger to the readers of the Charlotte paper. In fact, he and his brother, Kurt have frequently made the headlines here in various sections of the paper.
I won't try to repeat the entire article. I'll just print it below and you can imagine for yourself how comfortable Kyle Busch is sitting back eating M&Ms at his "Swim-in" bar.
I guarantee you, it was not like this in the "old" days.
Lake Norman home sells for record $7.5 million
13,000-square-foot castle is in Denvers gated Norman Estates community
By Jim Utter and Joe Marusak - jutter@charlotteobserver.com
Thursday, Oct. 04, 2012
This 13,000-square-foot home in Norman Estates in Denver sold for a record $7.5 million recently.
NASCAR driver Kyle Busch bought a 13,000-square-foot home on Lake Norman last month for a Charlotte-area record $7.5 million, according to someone with knowledge of the transaction.
A record of the Sept. 21 sale filed in the Lincoln County Register of Deeds office in Lincolnton identifies the buyer only as East Denver Revocable Trust and makes no mention of Busch. The home is in the gated Norman Estates community at the end of Unity Church Road in Denver.
Mooresville lawyer Cliff Homesley, who is identified in the records as trustee of the private trust, represented Busch when he pleaded guilty last year to traveling 128 mph in a 45 mph zone in Mooresville.
Homesley declined this week to say who bought the home. Its confidential, he said. I cant verify anything.
Tony Forouzad, the luxury homebuilder whose company spent 32 months building the home, also declined to identify the buyer, as did Abigail Jennings, president of Cornelius-based Lake Norman Realty, the firm that listed the sale. Both said confidentiality agreements barred them from disclosing the buyers name.
The record of the sale identifies Forouzad as owning the home before it was sold to the trust.
The previous highest sales price reported by Carolina Multiple Listing Services was $6.3 million in 2007 for a home in south Charlotte, Jennings said in a news release. Carolina MLS lists tens of thousands of homes for sale in its 10-county service area.
Luxury home designer Jim Phelps spent 1 1/2 years designing the home, Forouzad said.
The home has French, European and Tudor architectural influences, Jennings said. Interior features include soaring beamed ceilings, travertine and walnut floors and floor-to-ceiling stone fireplaces.
The foyer showcases a circular staircase and hand-forged iron railing below the wooden turret ceiling, she said.
The home has 180-degree panoramic views of Lake Norman, with a boat dock, covered slip, fully equipped outdoor kitchen and heated swimming pool with a swim-up bar.
Forouzad said the home took so long to build because of all the detail he and his workers put into it, right down to the tongue-and-groove ceiling in the boat house.
Its a true masterpiece, Forouzad said. Nothing else like it on Lake Norman.
Norman Estates is on the former site of Holidayland, a longtime blue-collar family campground that had 418 permanent trailer sites until it was closed in 1998 by Duke Energys former land-development arm, Crescent Resources.
Busch drives the No. 18 Toyota for Huntersville-based Joe Gibbs Racing. He won the Capital City 400 in Richmond this year and had 14 Top 10 finishes but barely missed out on NASCARs 2012 Sprint Cup series title chase.
In May 2011, Busch was charged with speeding 128 mph along Perth Road in Mooresville with his wife, Samantha, in the passenger seat of a yellow Lexus LFA. Busch said at the time that hed been given the car to try out for 24 hours by the Hendrick Lexus car dealership.
An Iredell County deputy stopped him near a Lake Norman subdivision, not far from a day care, a church and several neighborhoods. Busch was placed on probation for a year and fined $1,000. Iredell District Judge Thomas Church also revoked Buschs drivers license for 45 days and told him not to drive during that time.
Busch, who also pleaded no contest to reckless driving, apologized to the judge.
Staff researcher Maria David contributed.
Joe Marusak: 704-987-3670; on Twitter @ jmarusak
Read more here: http://www.thatsracin.com/2012/10/03/95568/lake-norman-home-sells-for-record.html#storylink=cpy
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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/16/16 07:54:05AM
