By Natalie Bradin and McKenzie Bulris
East Carolina University’s chancellor’s home hits the market, well below
appraisal value.
In March 2018, East Carolina University bought an 8,135-square-foot home about two miles from campus that then-Chancellor Cecil Staton and officials said would facilitate events promoting the 27,000-student institution.
At the time, it was reported by various media that the ECU Foundation paid $1.3 million for the 4-acre property at 3100 Kariblue Lane, which was built in 1997 and abuts the 13th hole of the Greenville Country Club. University leaders endorsed the transaction.
ECU and many universities have affiliated foundations that provide financial support that may not be available through other sources.
Left unsaid at the time is that a property appraisal placed the fair value of the property at $3.4 million. The difference between the sales price and appraisal facilitated a charitable donation to the ECU Foundation by the seller, former Greenville dentist Dr. Thomas “Rick” Webb. He confirms that he received credit for that philanthropy, but declines to disclose the amount.
ECU is now selling the home, with a mid-April listing price of $1.68 million.
The charitable donation was based on a 124-page report for the foundation by Greenville appraiser Bruce Sauter, dated May 17, 2018, that supported the $3.4 million valuation. The report cited the previous $1.3 million transaction as “a bargain sale.” It also noted the property’s assessed value of $932,000.
In the report, Sauter wrote that there were no single-family residences in Greenville that offered similar “size and elegance” to Webb’s property. Rather, he used eight homes in the Triangle metro area, each at least 90 miles west of Greenville, that had sold for $2.1 million to $3.5 million during the previous two years.
The most expensive comparison cited by Sauter was a property in Durham’s Hope Valley neighborhood. It is a 9,500-square-foot, five-bedroom home that sold for $3.5 million in August 2016. It is now valued at $5.3 million, according to the Zillow real estate service.
“The purpose of this appraisal is to develop an opinion of the fair value of the fee simple interest in the subject property, in terms of cash, on or about the effective date of valuation,” Sauter wrote in his report.
Following the purchase, the ECU Foundation spent additional funds renovating the Kariblue Lane home, which has five bedrooms, eight bathrooms, a 50-foot in-ground pool, and a three-car garage. Many windows and exterior doors were replaced. Additionally, about $1 million was spent for two adjoining lots, totaling 4.6 acres, to accommodate parking for events, according to Pitt County real estate records.
Last year, ECU Chancellor Philip Rogers and his family moved out of the home and moved to a three-bedroom home in Winterville, a Greenville suburb, The Daily Reflector in Greenville reported last year. The university signed a 12-month lease, the paper said.
The Kariblue Lane home was put up for sale in March for $1.675 million. It had received multiple offers as of mid-April, says Renee Carter, a Realtor with the Aldridge & Southerland agency in Greenville. The adjoining lots have not been put up for sale.
ECU declined to answer questions about the 2018 appraisal. The foundation is a nonprofit separate from the university and donor records are confidential, university spokesperson Jeannine Manning Hutson said.
The UNC System requires campuses to provide housing for chancellors. Last year, ECU Trustees Chair Jason Poole noted “it was an appropriate time to determine if a smaller footprint better meets the university’s needs and aligns more with university culture,” Hutson said.
That led to the pending sale and the temporary home lease for Rogers. The foundation and university are “exploring options for a permanent chancellor’s residence,” she said.
In an interview, Webb says he’s upset that the university is selling his former home. He calls the 2018 transaction “part sale and part charitable donation. I felt really good about it. I thought it was one of the chancellor’s big responsibilities to raise funding and entertain.”
Now retired and living in Raleigh, he remains a strong supporter of ECU, where his wife, Karen, earned a bachelor’s degree. Webb, 77, has a bachelor’s degree from UNC Chapel Hill, where he played basketball under coach Dean Smith, and and a doctoral degree in dental surgery from the UNC School of Dentistry.
Asked why the Greenville home that appraised at $3.4 million in 2018 is now likely to sell for 50% less, Sauter said, “Maybe they (ECU) just want to get rid of it. I don’t have a dog in the race.”
At the time of the 2018 purchase, ECU Foundation President Chris Dyba said in a release that the group was “excited to have acquired this wonderful property. We are very grateful to the owner, because he allowed us to purchase his home at a price significantly below its appraised and replacement value. We believe this purchase will provide ECU a wonderful residence for its chancellor and a great venue to host functions for alumni, donors, students, corporate leaders and top candidates for ECU leadership.”
The transaction drew criticism on social media and from some officials, The News and Observer of Raleigh reported at the time. Critics included Greenville businessman Harry Smith, then vice chairman of the UNC Board of Governors, who said the house exuded “aristocracy” in a relatively poor region.
Smith, who left the board in 2021, says the matter shows that the UNC System should not buy prestigious homes for chancellors.
“We have students working two or three jobs, and parents working two or three jobs to get their kids an education, and we’re buying those types of homes for chancellors,” Smith says.
ECU’s original plan was to renovate the longtime chancellor’s residence, the Dail House, which was built in 1930 and is adjacent to the campus. But the age of the house, asbestos and other code issues and lack of conformity with the Americans with Disabilities Act made a renovation costly, prompting ECU to take a different tack.
Staton was chancellor from 2016 to 2019. Rogers was hired for the position in 2020, after previously working as the university’s chief of staff from 2007-13. ■