Forest subdivision stopped in its tracks

By Bryan Gentry

Published: June 3, 2008

Anthony Inturrisi stands in his stopped-in-its tracks subdivision in Forest and sees what might have been — more than two dozen expansive homes on lovely lots, all on streets named for his grandkids.

But a slowed housing market has left the Bedford County builder short of that dream.

He nearly lost the subdivision to foreclosure after his bank froze his credit line. His company filed for bankruptcy last week, canceling a foreclosure auction so he can get his financial house in order and try moving the project forward.

“It was always his dream to do something like this,” his wife Mary Ann said Monday, sitting on the front porch steps of the only completed home in Jason Anthony Manor off Cottontown Road.

“I always knew he could do it. He could do anything he put his mind to.”

Inturrisi is lowering the prices on his high-end houses and on the land so he can sell them to pay back the bank and subcontractors.

He is one of several builders in the region struggling to survive the dip in the market. Others have filed for bankruptcy, too.

Inturrisi started building homes nearly 40 years ago. In 1993 he came to Bedford County from New Jersey to build a home for his sister. His family decided to stay.

“It was good for my kids,” said Mary Ann Inturrisi.

The county was also good for the construction industry. Inturrisi’s company, Custom Homes by Anthony, built and sold one home after another, court deeds show.

“We never had any (house) sitting more than three months,” he said.

Inturrisi lost count of how many homes he built in the area, but it’s at least 50, he said.

In 2004, Inturrisi started looking at land on Cottontown Road owned by Harry McDaniel.

Eventually Inturrisi offered to buy about 36 acres behind McDaniel’s house to create a subdivision.

When he told his wife about the idea, she said, “Go for it.”

Custom Homes by Anthony bought the land, divided it into 32 lots, installed utilities and had the road paved.

Inturrisi named the subdivision after his grandson, Jason, and the roads for his granddaughters, Maddie and Toni.

But in the summer of 2007, foreclosures began to rise nationwide, and home sales and prices fell.

Home values have remained steadier in the Lynchburg area, but homes have sat on the market longer than before. Also, there has been a decline in demand for high-end homes.

In September, Inturrisi was nearly done with two spacious homes priced at more than $400,000. He started two more.

With the housing market decline continuing, Christiansburg-based First National Bank froze Inturrisi’s credit line.

“They came in and said, we’re not going to release any more funds until one of the first two homes sold,” he said.

“It’s like going into a ball game and pulling a pitcher in the fifth inning,” he said. With much of his cash tied up in the project, “I kind of ran out of money.”

None of the houses have sold.

Beginning in January, the bank started planning a foreclosure auction. Local subcontractors filed liens for thousands of dollars of work or materials they supplied for the subdivision.

Inturrisi said he worried that if the property were auctioned, it would not yield enough money to pay the bank and subcontractors.

In late May he told his concerns to Stephen Dunn, a lawyer who had represented Inturrisi in real estate transactions.

“His goal was to make sure everybody gets paid every dime,” Dunn said. He suggested a bankruptcy reorganization to buy time.

Custom Homes by Anthony filed for bankruptcy on May 28. That allows the company to come up with a plan for paying off its debts.

“The initial plan on this is we’re going to reduce the prices on these houses by $30,000 to $40,000 apiece so we can start getting the bank paid off, and getting the mechanics liens taken care of,” Dunn said.

Inturrisi said he’s cutting the price of empty lots by about 30 percent and reducing some of the home size requirements.

They already have contracts on two empty lots, Dunn said.

Other small developers in Bedford County are having trouble during the slow market as well. Several have filed for bankruptcy, including Bedford Builders, another client of Dunn’s.

The 3,800-square-foot house on the corner of Cottontown Road and Maddie Lane was first priced at $479,000, but Inturrisi now is asking $429,000.

Showing off the home’s hardwood floors, granite countertops and screened-in porch, Inturrisi talks of his vision as though people are already living there.

Entering the master suite on the top floor, he points out a view of the mountains that’s hard to see from the street. He can also see the road named for his granddaughter stretching downhill to empty land.

“Down on the street the trees are in the way, but once you get off the ground,” he said, “you’ve got a view.”