Son of late TV mogul, billionaire pays record price for North Carolina mansion

The 10,065-square-foot home on Hemlock Road borders the Blue Ridge Parkway and Biltmore Estate equestrian trails, Premier Sotheby’s officials said in a news release.

On Monday, March 6, Thomas and Marcia Nash sold their home to Brent Redstone and Anne Vanderwerken, of Evergreen, Colorado, according to a Charlotte Observer review of the deed transaction on file at the Buncombe County Register of Deeds office.

No other home in the county has sold for higher, according to Premier Sotheby’s, based in Naples, Florida.

CBS, Viacom empire

Brent Redstone is the son of the late CBS and Viacom billionaire media mogul Sumner Redstone, The Denver Post reported in 2006. The article detailed the family tussle for control of parts of Sumner Redstone’s fortune. Sumner Redstone died in 2020.

Brent Redstone held a $1.3-billion stake at the time in his family’s Massachusetts-based National Amusements movie-theater chain, according to the article. He lived with his wife in a 10,000-square-foot home on a 625-acre Colorado ranch, the newspaper reported.

Brent Redstone sued that year to break up his father’s business empire, The New York Times reported. He said he’d been treated unfairly and that his father favored Brent Redstone’s sister, according to the newspaper.

Redstone couldn’t be reached by the Observer this week.

Marilyn Wright, the Sotheby’s Realty agent who represented the Redstones in the Hemlock Road mansion transaction, told the Observer the buyers want to remain anonymous and “are trying to retire here privately.”

'True labor of love'

Sandi AuBuchon, Wright’s colleague at Premier Sotheby’s Asheville office, listed the home for $9.75 million in summer 2020, according to a company news release announcing the sale.

“Our house was not on the market at the time,” Marcia Nash told the Observer on Thursday, but they decided to sell because they’ll be empty nesters after their son heads to college in the fall.

“The timing just worked out well,” she said in a text. “The Hemlock House was a wonderful spot for kids to gather for so many years. So much joy abides there. We are are confident that the new owners are going to make many wonderful memories in their new home.”

Her husband is from Asheville, and she’s a Tennessee native who was recruited to play on the UNC-Asheville women’s basketball team, she said.

The Robert Griffin-designed home “was a very personal project, a true labor of love” that began in 2013, Marcia Nash said.

She and her husband of 25 years were inspired by the architecture they admired on trips to Europe, she said. They told Griffin they wanted an “English Country home with the unique charm of Switzerland — abundant with planters and handmade oak shutters with etched fleur-de-lis,” she said.

“Robert is so talented and has some of the most beautiful work I’ve ever seen in Biltmore Forest and Asheville,” Marcia Nash said.

Tudor home in Asheville

Their builder, Steve Wiggins, brought Griffin’s drawings to life, she said. “His integrity and humility combined with a great eye for aesthetics really works for us,” she said. The home was the second one Wiggins custom-built for the Nashes.

The couple went through each step of design and construction “prayerfully asking God to be a part of the process,” she said. “We wrote favorite scriptures on the framing under the walls to know the foundation on which this home was built.”

“Although it’s a large home, it somehow manages to feel cozy and welcoming thanks to interior designer Shari Hayes, who was with us during the full scope of the design,” Marcia Nash said.

Overall, she said, “we tried to capture the elegance of a Tudor with the whimsy of a cottage you might see in the Cotswolds. Like on the English countryside, it’s not uncommon to see a horse walk by on a trail ride from the Equestrian Center on the Biltmore Estate.”

AuBuchon, who listed the home, said Premier Sotheby’s Asheville office continues to see luxury buyers from the West Coast, New York and California.

“And this particular home has features and architectural details that were very elevated, which was exactly what our buyer was looking for,” she said.