News

Ask Matt ... about Horse Shoe Farm

By Bill Moss, Published: November 29, 2014

The Lightning's intrepid researcher answers readers' questions.

Q. I noticed that the Horse Shoe Farm is up for sale. That might be one of the most beautiful farms in Henderson County. What happened there and why are they selling?

Horse Shoe Farm on South Rugby Road is for sale by a New York company (registered in Miami Beach) called SAMC REO 2013-01, LLC (not a warm and fuzzy name but nonetheless the owner of record). It acquired the farm in June of 2014 from the E. Jan Mullis Trust. Much of what this company does is acquire foreclosures and resell them.
I spoke with John Rhem, a broker with Mountain Sotheby's International Realty, the company handling the property. Rhem, whose office is in Banner Elk, described the listing as "truly one of a kind." The property actually consists of 10 contiguous lots totaling 84 acres. The asking price is $5 million. Rhem said that at this time the estate would not be split up, meaning the buyer gets the land and eight homes plus eight barns and storage buildings. He added that there has been tremendous interest in the site. Mountain Sotheby's specializes in high-end properties in Western North Carolina, East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. The real estate company is part of the global Sotheby's network with 600 offices in 45 countries. This is not Sotheby's first listing with SAMC.
Bill and Jan Mullis started out in Bradenton, Fla. Bill was in the banking business for 15 years before he started a staff leasing company that eventually became the largest of its kind in the country. The couple purchased and developed the Horse Shoe Farm and raised horses and Belted Galloway cattle. Bill collected old road signs, motorcycles and '57 Chevys. His biggest prizes were vintage black Chevy Corvettes. At one time he had a collection of two dozen stored in a garage on the property. Bill Mullis was known to entertain many guests on the farm and would throw parties in one of the barns furnished with a bandstand and dance floor. Unfortunately, through combination of some bad business investments and the 2008 recession, much of what the Mullises had acquired was lost. The cars were among the first to go – sold in a 2011 auction. The couple's 10,000-sqiuare-foot riverfront mansion in Bradenton went up for auction last January. Soon after, they began downsizing Horse Shoe Farm.