Take a tour of a $7.9 million Virginia Beach estate

VIRGINIA BEACH

Months after the real estate market collapsed like a cheap lawn chair, home bargains are finally out there.

Take this one: 11 bedrooms, lotsa bathrooms, lotsa crown molding, a big chess set on the lawn, a pool, a lakefront. The usual amenities.

And 22,000 square feet of living space.

Right now, the Sajo Farm manor house is a steal. It hit the market a year ago at $12 .5 million. N ow it's a bargain $7.9 million.

Do the math: That's a savings of 37 percent. And, just for kicks, let's figure out the monthly payments. Say we put $3 million down and get a 30-year loan for the rest at 5 percent. The payments would be about $33,450.

Per month.

Interested? Let's take a look.

A grand estate

On Sajo Farm Road off Diamond Springs Road in Virginia Beach, the house is tucked away out of sight. Just the way people like to live when they have enough money to buy a house like this. Off a gravel road and through the woods is a wall and a big, white iron gate that swings open when the real estate agent in the lead car punches all the right buttons.

Welcome to Sajo Farm, the manor house: a jaw-dropping, 27-room, Georgian-style estate with 4-1/2 wooded acres on the shores of Lake Lawson, an idyllic setting complete with the illusion of gently rolling terrain.

Let's park and go in, shall we?

Anne Page, the Rose & Womble Realtor with the listing, leads the way. We can call her Cookie. Everybody does.

Outside the door, Cookie points out the brickwork - Flemish bond. Very nice.

Sam Jones built this house in about 1939, she explains while our eyes adjust to the dark. He was an entrepreneur from Poplar Ridge, N.C., who worked his way up the ladder at - and finally owned - Berkley Machine & Foundry in Norfolk. He appreciated good craftsmanship and could afford the best, and lots of it. At one point he owned about 800 acres in northern Virginia Beach.

Jones, who died in 1977 at age 84, named the estate after himself. It changed hands a couple of times and is available again.

We blink as the crystal chandelier lights up and twinkles every color of the rainbow, and we take a good look at the foyer.

Make that "foi-yay" since we've got our million-dollar manners on.

Good golly. You could hold a dance in here. The entire entrance hall is paneled in velvet-soft dark wood. Mahogany, Cookie says. She points out a hand-carved medallion on the bottom of the grand staircase. Then she waves at a wide door at the back of this space.

"They could open this up and catch the breezes off Lake Lawson," she says.

Well, that would be nice.

"To the left," Cookie says, "is the formal living room." It is 28 by 35 feet. More heavy moldings and trim and the first of, what did she say? Sixteen fireplaces. Sixteen?

She thinks so. It's hard to be sure, even after a year of showing the house sometimes three and four times to the same interested parties, who, by the way, she declines to name. At least one was "an entertainer."

Anyway, back to the living room and a ceiling painted with cherubs. They're not wearing very many clothes.

"And this, of course," says Cookie, her heels clacking along the polished oak floors, "is the library."

Cool. More mahogany paneling and two shell-shaped alcoves and nice sconces right and left of this fireplace. Are the sconces staying?

"Could be," says Cookie.

Aha! Room for negotiation.

Cookie keeps walking. "Here's a guest room and, of course, you've got another fireplace in here."

Of course.

She shows off the closet and the Blue Bathroom, heavily trimmed with crown molding.

"But this is nothing," Cookie says, "this is just the start."

She pauses to explain that we are in the North Wing.

"This is how I show it, or you get confused," she says.

So we concentrate, and follow her across the length of the house into the... South Wing?

Correct, Cookie says.

"This is your formal dining room," she says.

On three walls in this gigantic room is another hand-painted mural, along with a glistening crystal chandelier with drops the size of lemons.

"This is a mirror of the living room," Cookie says. "And they're both the same size: huge."

And there's another fireplace.

Next, a butler's pantry the size of most people's kitchens, cabinets with fish-scale carvings and, to the right, a sunken summer porch with exposed brick walls, terrazzo tile floor and a cozy banquette. It's the breakfast room. Outside is the breakfast patio. There's a bigger patio, poolside, out back. A courtyard, really.

Of course.

"The kitchen," says Cookie, leading the way, "was redone in the last several years."

Nice. Six-burner Viking stove. Several chandeliers. Two-drawer dishwasher. Very English manor house-looking cabinetry. Wine cooler.

"Of course, we have a wine cellar down in the basement," Cookie says.

Bless her. Of course.

Back here, also, is the family room with a dining area, a billiards room, a screened porch with a sage green ceiling. So restful. And the views of the lake? Stunning.

"Now this part of the house was originally the caretaker's cottage," she says, "and here's the bell they would ring to ask permission to come into the house."

We go upstairs without asking anybody.

North Side: the master suite, a mural of nude bathers in the master bath and little cameo ornaments fastened to each elaborate, Victorian-style window treatment.

A dressing room, train room (yes, choo-choo trains), office, bathroom with green tile.

"The house looks massive," says Cookie, still leading the way, "but then as you continue to come here, it gets more livable, manageabl e. ' Smaller,' I guess is the word."

If you say so, Cookie.

South Side: Another huge bedroom painted a vibrant salmon, a pink bathroom and some curtains that have it all: beads, tassels, cords, swaths of iridescent fabric.

A hall, another office, another hall, a laundry room.

"Don't you feel like you're in the White House?" Cookie says, then peeks into the purple washer/dryer space. "This could easily be converted back into a bathroom if somebody needed another bathroom up here."

Another bathroom? Aren't there eight already? Plus four half-baths?

Cookie shrugs.

Bedroom, bathroom, sitting room.

"Let's do the third level,"' Cookie says.

Playroom, bathroom, bedroom.

"This was unfinished until recently and," she says, "there's plenty more room if you wanted to add a fourth level."

Oh, why not?

Downstairs, in a basement so clean you could eat there, is a temperature-controlled wine cellar, spa, game room, workshop and a really cool escape route that leads directly onto the lake.

In case, maybe, Cookie theorizes, somebody needs to make a quick getaway by boat. Very James Bond.

Sounds good.

Back outside, waiting on top of Cookie's Mercedes, are Sajo Farm's sleek peacocks, who strut and screech something like, "HEAAALP! HEAAAALP!"

But Cookie's not done. Back outside in the sunshine, after an hour and a half of climbing stairs and looking into closets, there's yet another house, with another six-burner Viking stove to show off, another wine cooler, fireplace, billiards table, a bar, commercial ice maker and guest quarters with room for who-knows-how-many to sleep over.

Pointing a manicured finger wa-a-a-ay across the trimmed lawn and clipped hedges at a building with five glass garage doors, she says, "Let's take a look at the cottage. It's a great party space."

Krys Stefansky, (757) 446-2043, krys.stefansky@pilotonline.com