NC city known for BBQ, bluegrass has a $5.9M mansion for sale. Here’s what we know.
The N.C. foothills city of Shelby is known for what many food aficionados claim to be the world’s best barbecue. It’s also recognized for the late, homegrown bluegrass star Earl Scruggs.
But mansions?
That’s typically the purview of Lake Norman and the cities of Charlotte, Raleigh and Asheville.
Shelby, population 20,000, has an average household income of $54,384 and a poverty rate of nearly 26%, according to World Population Review.
That’s why it seemed unusual when a Shelby-area home was put on the market recently for $5.9 million, according to its listing on Canopy MLS, where real estate agents list Charlotte-area homes for sale.
Talmadge and Mary Turner have lived in the mansion since it was built in the Cleveland County countryside, about 55 miles west of Charlotte, in 2002, public records show. While the home has a Shelby address, it’s actually just outside the town limits of nearby Boiling Springs.
Fortune in trucking
Talmadge Turner, who is 78 years old, started Turner Trucking Co. in 1961, according to its website. Based in Boiling Springs, Turner Trucking expanded nationwide over the decades and hauls goods for such grocers and retailers as Food Lion, Harris Teeter, Walmart and Aldi, according to the Turner Trucking website.
“They are also justifiably proud of the fact that they are the sole carrier of lemons for lemonade served by Chick-fil-A in the Carolinas and Southern Virginia,” the company posted on its site when the Cleveland County Chamber of Commerce named it the 2019 Small Business of the Year.
Talmadge Turner still owns the company, according to its website.
The Turners couldn’t be reached by The Charlotte Observer this week.
Daughter Tricia Byrd, who lives across the road from the mansion, said Wednesday that her parents are selling due to their age. Her parents, who’ve been married for 60 years, don’t want to saddle their children with the tax burden, she said.
The family expects it will take five or more years to sell the home but hope to be surprised by an offer sooner than that, Byrd said.
The family has long been a part of the Boiling Springs community, she said. Her grandparents, the Beasons, ran Cleveland Sandwich Co., which provided sandwiches to textile mills, and opened the Snack Shop restaurant in the town, which now has a population of 6,500..
Tom McKay of Pinnacle Sotheby’s International Realty is the listing agent for the home..
Antique stone floors
The 8,981-square-foot French country estate on Whitaker Road could be yours for a monthly payment of $23,915, according to its listing.
Included are nearly 50 acres of fenced pasture.
Along with four bedrooms and seven baths, the mansion has antique stone floors and a slate roof with copper guttering.
Hand-painted murals and fleur-de-lis images grace its ceilings and walls, and two “multi-tiered” waterfalls flank its outdoor pool, according to its listing.
The home is valued at nearly $5 million and the land at nearly $230,000 , according to Cleveland County property tax records.
Record home resales
The record for the highest-ever home resale in the Charlotte market was set this year when a home at 401 Hempstead Pl. in Charlotte sold for $7.7 million, Mecklenburg County records show.
In November, a Charlotte-area man who founded an $80 million Amazon store e-commerce company bought a Lake Norman mansion for $7 million, marking the second-highest home resale ever in the Charlotte market, the Observer reported at the time.
This story was originally published December 29, 2021 at 6:00 AM.