Curious public takes a look inside Vick's former house

SURRY COUNTY

Robert Delk hesitated at the fence to Michael Vick’s old backyard, unsure of what he was about to see behind it.

He approached slowly, cautiously – and still too fast for his wife and her friend.

“I don’t want to go back there,” said Lois Hargrove, who waited with Olivia Delk near the house.

But like most people who visited Vick’s former home Saturday, they eventually went back there, too. The access came via a public showing by the property’s new owner, who plans to auction the 15-acre estate at noon Saturday. The open house continued Sunday.

“Come on down!” real estate agent Kyle Hause Jr. greeted visitors at the security gate.

A man from New Jersey in a Land Rover was already at the house at 9:30 a.m., Hause said, but most of the people who visited Saturday were from Hampton Roads.

About 75 people had been through by 3 p.m., Hause estimated. Maybe 10 came with intentions to bid next week, he said.

Most were just curious.

“Something to do on a Saturday afternoon,” said Jean Shannon, a Hampton resident who came with her daughter and granddaughter.

For many, the showing was a tale of two tours. The first offered a chance to see the kind of house a millionaire athlete would build.

“This closet’s the size of my bedroom at home!” exclaimed Anne Turner, who drove from Prince George County.

“It’s just beautiful,” said Derrick Mings, a Newport News resident in a Vick jersey.

Several visitors opened their camera phones when they walked into the master bedroom and saw one of the last remaining pieces of furniture in the house: a large wooden bed frame that Hause said was used by Vick.

The current owner, Wilbur Ray Todd Jr., gave the house a $50,000 face-lift after he bought the property from Vick last month for $450,000. The county last assessed the estate at $747,000, and Todd said it should fetch between $900,000 and $1 million at auction.

“If it doesn’t sell, I’m going to make it a bed-and-breakfast,” he said. “Bring your pet. Why not?”

The second leg of the tour took visitors behind the house and into the woods, where authorities said Vick and three other men ran the illegal dogfighting operation called Bad Newz Kennels. Vick, a Newport News native, is to be sentenced Monday on a federal conspiracy charge.

Thirteen-year-old Jocia Golden walked the compound with her 5-year-old sister, Amari Zimmerman, and her father, Patrick Zimmerman of Smithfield.

“There must have been a lot of dogs,” she said.

Josh Simmons, a 21 -year-old Navy man who owns a pit bull, said he was disgusted by what he saw.

“I don’t really care about the house,” he said. “I just wanted to see what kind of conditions they had to live in.”

The four black sheds held some of the greatest mystery for visitors. Wilhemenia S. Brown decided not to risk a climb up a steep ladder to the second floor of the two-story shed, the one where it is believed authorities removed pieces of wood for evidence of blood.

“Excuse me, excuse me. Do me a favor,” Brown said as she held out her camera to the group going up the ladder. “Snap me a picture up there.”

Lenora Alvin, 70, walked away with an uneasy feeling. She said a preacher should come to pray over the property before it’s sold.

“Because there’s a lot of emotion back there,” she said.

Then, almost abruptly, she turned and looked again at the large, white brick two-story home.

“The house is beautiful,” she said.

Dave Forster, (757) 222-5563,

dave.forster@pilotonline.com