ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, July 31, 1996 TAG: 9607310007
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HUDDLESTON
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
So much house, so many questions.
Like, why is it so big?
Why is it so close to the road?
Why is it in the middle of an overgrown field?
Why did the neighbor post a sign that reads ``Servants' Quarters''?
And why is Dorothy Saunders selling it?
To understand the answer to any of these questions, it is first necessary to understand a few things about Saunders, a woman of failing health with a fondness for solitude, a warm affection for her three cats, a certain Northern business savvy and a Southern flair for digression and storytelling.
Knowing a little something about the house itself helps, too.
To begin with, it's big.
Really big - with 12-foot ceilings, six furnaces, five heat pumps, four fireplaces and an elevator - 12,244 square feet in all. That's as big as some motels. It's as big as a dozen ranch homes. Stately is a word that comes to mind. Considerable.
Maybe even ostentatious.
The solarium alone is nearly as big as a tennis court.
The patio rivals a basketball court.
But it isn't the sheer girth of the house that makes it such a curiosity - there are other big houses around. What's odd about this one is its location on Tolers Ferry Road in the Huddleston section of Bedford County near Smith Mountain Lake.
It's not on the water.
In fact, it's nowhere near the water.
And it's right on the road, not hidden in some upscale golfing community, or secluded on a rolling country estate. It's front-and-center. In your face. Driving down Tolers Ferry Road, from either direction, you can't miss it.
What's also odd is that the house sits in an open, overgrown field, as if it were picked up by a tornado from a wealthy, suburban neighborhood and plopped down on a farm somewhere out in the sticks. (Remember, the owner's name is Dorothy.)
There is no landscaping.
There are no trees.
There's not any lawn to speak of.
Saunders has a reasonable explanation for all these curiosities.
The size of the house has to do in large part with her health and to her upbringing. Saunders was raised in Roxbury, N.C., about 30 miles south of South Boston, in a former plantation home that boasted, among other amenities, 15-foot ceilings.
She always loved those high ceilings.
Then her health demanded them. Whenever she enters a room with lower ceilings, she said, she passes out. She also suffers from Parkinson's disease, from shortness of breath, and she has been recovering from a cerebral embolism.
So, she had to have high ceilings.
She also needed space for all the furniture she has collected through the years.
Before moving into her current home in 1994, Saunders lived in Poplar Forest near Lynchburg in a comparatively modest house that she said had become so packed full of furniture it left her with virtually no maneuvering room.
``I had pathways,'' she said. ``I couldn't entertain.''
Don't get the wrong idea here.
Saunders didn't grow up rich. She had eight brothers. Her father was a preacher. ``You know, they didn't make much money,'' she said. ``They got paid with chickens and eggs and vegetables.''
But she took with her some important advice.
From her father: ``I was raised to do things right. You don't do things halfway.''
And from her mother: ``Remember, you can love a wealthy man just as much as a poor man.''
Saunders fell in love with a doctor in Maryland.
They married and they had a daughter, Mary Susan. They lived the high life in suburban Washington, D.C., with maids, a cook, a gardener, a yacht and a summer home in Annapolis. Her husband even set her up in business, running a pricey boutique.
But then he died. Saunders was 25, a widow.
To cope, she threw herself into her business, opening two more boutiques in the Washington area. She said she developed a certain Northern toughness, mostly from her frequent trips to the garment district in New York City.
In 1973, she sold the boutiques and moved to Virginia to be near her ailing mother, who lived in Lynchburg at the time. She met Jimmy Saunders, a Bedford County farmer whose farm occupied a valuable piece of waterfront property along Smith Mountain Lake. In 1976, they got married.
She went into business again, this time selling insurance.
Again, she did well.
``I think a lot of people bought from me because they were fascinated by me.''
She said they were fascinated by her diamond rings, and her odd hybrid of Yankee attitude and Southern latitude. Saunders freely digresses when she talks, jumping from one story to the next without missing a beat. It makes her very approachable.
But her marriage to Jimmy Saunders didn't last. In 1982, they divorced.
She also lost her daughter to cancer.
It was a tough time, and Saunders came away not necessarily bitter, but definitely more content to live in solitude. ``I have learned that if you live alone, you are better off,'' she said.
She moved to Poplar Forest. In 1988, her furniture space exhausted, she started building her home in Huddleston. Saunders said she has never considered it her dream home. She just wasn't going to build it halfway.
She didn't want to be on Smith Mountain Lake. She had lived on the lake when she was married.
``The lake is cold and damp. I found it more uncomfortable.''
Instead, she picked a spot along Tolers Ferry Road, on a farm that belongs to her longtime assistant, Thelma Barger. Saunders didn't plan to build the house quite so close to the road. But she said her first contractor mistakenly put the back of the house where the front was supposed to be.
It was the first of many problems to come.
Saunders designed the house herself as a sort of oversized colonial with a flat roof, but health problems prevented her from overseeing the building as closely as she wanted. Many of her designs never materialized.
Costs escalated.
She said she was originally charged $159,000 just for windows. She managed to reduce that to $59,000 by dealing directly with the manufacturer. She also was given estimates of $60,000 to $150,000 for her stairs. Again, she managed to find a better price.
She went through a series of builders and a series of lawsuits.
Construction dragged on for five years.
They went through 77,000 bricks.
In the end, Saunders isn't sure how much money she spent.
``When we got over a million dollars, we figured we'd better stop counting,'' she said.
She finally moved in two years ago.
She named the house.
``It's named Dora'' she said. ``That's short for Dorothea, which is my birth name.''
Inside, the house is extravagantly decorated with African mahogany hardwood floors, Oriental rugs overlapping Oriental rugs, Bohemian crystal chandeliers, real silk wallpaper in the bathrooms, and a pair of 14-foot mahogany arched front doors. The inside also is equipped with security cameras.
This makes for quite a contrast to the neglected field outside.
The weather hasn't cooperated with her landscaping plans these past two years, Saunders explained. It has either been too wet or too dry, too hot or too cold. But she said she is eager to get started.
``I want boxwoods. I've got to have boxwoods. I've never lived without boxwoods.''
Saunders also offered an explanation for the good-natured sign at the double-wide next door: ``Servants' Quarters.'' It was hung by Thelma Barger's brother. ``To make fun of me and my big house,'' Saunders said.
She shares the house now with Barger, an ailing brother, a night watchman and her three cats: Krista Doris Lovey Dovey, Sir Christopher Maximilian and Sir Christopher Maximilian II, whom she affectionately described as ``the boss of the house.''
So, why is she selling?
The house was on the market for a year, listed at $1.4 million, according to Realtor Doreen Cundiff. Now, it is listed at $1.1 million, including most of the furnishings, and Cundiff said she has an out-of-state buyer who is ``very, very interested.''
Saunders explained that the house is more than she can keep up, even with Barger's help and a housekeeper. Plus, she isn't happy with the way it turned out. It's not really a colonial. The roof isn't flat. The basement is too deep into the ground. And the house is shorter than she originally envisioned.
``Can you imagine this house 10 feet taller?'' she asked. ``It would have been a mansion.''
LENGTH: Long : 171 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. The only thing Dorothy Saunders' 12,000-square-footby CNBhome lacks is landscaping. color
2. WAYNE DEEL STAFF Dorothy Saunders with one of her three cats, Sir
Christopher Maximilian, in the solarium - her favorite part of the
house. color
3. Neighbors have poked fun at Saunders' home by posting this
`Servants' Quarters' sign. color
4. Fourteen-foot doors open to the front stairs of the house.
color
5. WAYNE DEEL STAFF The solarium has mahogany floors and Oriental
rugs.
6. map showing location of "Dora".