Former Owner Buys Damascus Old Mill at Auction

DAMASCUS, Va. –  On Tuesday, he said he had no interest in buying the historic Old Mill. But on Saturday, Stuart Wright III, whose family had turned the Damascus landmark into a successful business before selling it, was the high bidder for the property.

“Actually, we got carried away. We didn’t come here to buy it. We just got excited,” said Wright, a Damascus businessman who said he and his sons Stuart IV and Michael do not yet have a plan for how they will run the place. “I never expected it to sell like this. I thought someone would come in and pay more for it.”

The Wright family’s winning bid was $475,000.

In 2005, after operating the mill as an inn and restaurant for three years, the Wrights sold the property to North Carolina businessman Ronnie Wren, who paid $1.55 million for what was then an operating business. Wren lost the property in foreclosure, to a bank and the U.S. Small Business Administration; and Wright said he has a judgment against Wren for $550,000 of that purchase price.

In other words, Wright might be buying back the mill, now unoccupied, for less than what Wren still owes him from the transaction four years ago.

The bank has not yet accepted the bid, warned David Counts, the auctioneer with Counts Auction Group, so it’s not a done deal. Counts said everyone should know
in a few days whether Wright’s bid is accepted.

“I think Stuart got a bargain,” Counts said. “The economy’s not what it should be, but I think Mr. Wright got a deal if the bank will approve it.”

Counts said he had hoped – but didn’t believe – that the mill would bring $700,000.

“There have to be people who follow SBA foreclosures,” Wright said. “I expected people to be here from everywhere, but they weren’t.”

Both Wright and Counts said the economy appears to be a factor in the unimpressive turnout for the auction; the bidding started at $100,000 for the 8,000-square-foot building, and Counts said just one bidder was from outside the area.

The Wrights said they don’t expect the town’s tourism-based economy, which they helped to develop, will take a big hit from the recession this year.

Michael Wright, who owns two bike shops and a coffee shop, among other things, said weekend weather forecasts will have a bigger impact – and he’s hoping to catch some of the folks who usually vacation in Florida but are looking for something less expensive and closer to home.

“We’re close to a lot of places,” Michael Wright said of Damascus. “There’s potential to be developed that nobody’s taken advantage of.”

He said the $22-a-person fee charged by his bike rental and shuttle service for an easy, downhill ride on the Virginia Creeper Trail qualifies as an inexpensive life experience – and doesn’t cost much more than a typical movie outing.

He and his father both said the mill is another important brick for building tourism in the town.

“The goal would be for Damascus to become a year-round resort, and for that to happen you’ve got to have a place like this,” Stuart Wright said of the mill.

“We live in Damascus, we care about Damascus, we know that this facility is an integral part of the development of Damascus, and we intend to operate it for the benefit of ourselves and the community.”

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