A Houston-area estate fit for a queen or a billionaire is being marketed for $60 million, making it the most expensive residential real estate listing in Texas.
The main house of the chateau-inspired Lodge in Hunters Creek, adjacent to the Buffalo Bayou and Houston Country Club, encompasses a whopping 22,000 square feet. The nine-acre estate is in Houston’s wealthiest ZIP code.
The listing went on the market last year, but without an asking price. Recently, Dallas-based Icon Global revealed the $60 million list price.
“Our client has recently instructed that the estate be sold on the open market with the list price now that we are well through the pandemic,” says Bernard Uechtritz, owner and founder of Icon Global. “The estate’s size, price, and amenities put this property in the front row of first-class properties offered nationwide and is among the very best available in the country. It is certainly the crown jewel of the Texas marketplace.”
Formerly known as the Romanov Estate, the property includes a 3,500-square-foot guest home and additional staff quarters. Among the highlights are a wrought-iron elevator, chandeliers, carved mahogany staircases, and space for as many as seven cars.
Completed in 2005 after six years of construction, the tree-shrouded estate — built of steel, concrete, and Indiana limestone — is designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. It features aspects inspired by the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, and the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California.
The interior includes architectural elements chosen by the current owner and shipped from Belgium, England, France, and Italy.
“As an architect doing work for over 35 years across the United States and in several other countries around the world, I will tell you that the [estate] … is one of the most extraordinary houses anyone may ever see,” architect Ken Newberry, who was hired to design the estate, says in an Icon Global news release.
In 2016, the estate hosted the Bayou Preservation Association’s 50th anniversary soiree.
Icon Global shared few details about the estate, including its address. The cul-de-sac property, being marketed to ultra-high-net-worth individuals, sits behind security gates and is equipped with other security measures.
“Given the likely profile, privacy, and security requirements of a prospective new owner, we are only providing detailed interior and other amenity specs to vetted, approved, and invited prospects or brokers on a case-by-case basis,” Uechtritz says.
Anyone who tours the property must first sign a confidentiality agreement.
Uechtritz calls the estate “one of the most expensively built, tasteful, and well-designed compounds ever built in Texas or nationally for that matter … .”
The ornate chandelier.
