When Baton Rouge Realtor Dana Patureau saw the headlines about the Paula Pennington de la Bretonne estate on Highland Road selling for $6 million—as first reported by Daily Report on Monday—she let fly a few words unsuitable for print.
“I was disappointed, for sure,” says Patureau, owner of Chateau to Geaux Real Estate Group.
That’s because only one month earlier, on May 20, Patureau had finally closed on her own high-end listing: a $2.3 million home at 21828 Turkey Creek Drive. With the sale—which took roughly two years and “a lot of blood, sweat, tears and prayer” to close—Patureau had set a new local record.
“It was the largest home that had ever sold in the history of the local (Multiple Listing Service). Not the most expensive, but the largest,” Patureau says of the 13,445-square-foot home. “I had even checked with MLS to have it certified as the largest. I was so excited.”
But the sale of the Pennington de la Bretonne estate—which includes roughly 36,700 square feet of living quarters between the main home and guest house located on the 12.5-acre property—shattered pretty much every real estate record on the books in Baton Rouge, including Patureau’s. In fact, it now represents the largest and most expensive home sale in Baton Rouge history.
In both cases, the sale price was considerably lower than the initial listing price. The Pennington de la Bretonne estate had been listed for as high as $18 million initially and was later reduced to $12 million. Patureau’s listing was initially set at $3.8 million and was later lowered to $2.55 million.
Both homes took two-plus years on the market to sell. That’s an eternity when compared to the latest monthly figures from the Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors, which show the average home in the area sold after just 80 days on the market in May.
“Anything over $1.5 million is always to going to take at least a year, if not more, and anything over $2 million is definitely going to take that long,” says Patureau. “And that’s just because there isn’t hardly anyone who can afford it. We’re not in Hollywood. We’re in Baton Rouge. They call us ‘Hollywood South’ now, but not when it comes to real estate. There are only a handful of people here who can afford homes in excess of $2 million.”
The nine-bedroom, 11-bath home Patureau sold at 21828 Turkey Creek Drive sits on a 9-acre-lot with its own private lake. Among other features, the home has an indoor basketball court and movie theater. Patureau declines to name the buyer.
The seller was Nathian Hossley. A construction company owned by Hossley and his wife, Sharon, recently had a contract with the Capital Area Transit System terminated because CATS officials claim they failed to fulfill it. Hossley was also co-owner of Spice Bistro, which recently closed on Perkins Road.
—Steve Sanoski
