Sharp family estate coming to market with $9M price tag

The 18-acre estate overlooks Rivergate Lake. (Photos courtesy CVRMLS)

The house that Circuit City and CarMax built is hitting the market this week, with one of the heftier residential price tags seen in the region in years.

Sherry Sharp, the widow of the late Circuit City CEO and CarMax founder Rick Sharp, is putting their lakefront estate in Goochland’s Rivergate community up for sale with an asking price of $9.5 million.

Anchored by a 21,000-square-foot mansion, the 18-acre estate at 501 Rivergate Drive is scheduled to be listed this Thursday, nearly a week after it was entered as a “coming soon” property in the Central Virginia Regional Multiple Listing Service.

Sharp is listing the property with Scott Ruth and Scott Shaheen of Shaheen, Ruth, Martin & Fonville Real Estate. They said Sharp is remaining local but would not discuss her plans further.

The main house totals 21,000 square feet.

Ruth and Shaheen noted the mansion’s size in discussing the listing, which they said came to them through longtime family friendships with the Sharps.

“As you can see by the square-footage, she’s ready to make some change in her life,” Ruth said.

“She’s been there eight years since Richard passed away,” added Shaheen, referring to Rick Sharp’s death in 2014, four years after the 67-year-old was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Sherry has since led the Rick Sharp Alzheimer’s Foundation, which according to its website has raised more than $2 million for Alzheimer’s research.

The late Rick Sharp, who died in 2014. (BizSense file)

The Sharps built the estate as the centerpiece of Rivergate, which Rick Sharp developed with Realty Ventures Group. The gated community is between River Road and Patterson Avenue just south of West Creek.

The Sharps moved to the estate from nearby Mooreland Farms, where they previously built a 9,000-square-foot house at 201 Cyril Lane that they sold in 2002 for $985,000. Rick Sharp retired in 2000 from Circuit City, the now-defunct electronics retailer. He retired as board chairman of CarMax in 2007.

Totaling 25,000 square feet of space across multiple buildings, the Rivergate listing includes the primary 16-acre parcel and an adjoining 2-acre buildable lot at 495 Rivergate Drive. Goochland County has assessed the two parcels at $5.5 million combined.

The listing does not include another 2-acre parcel that’s been improved and is owned by the same entity, RLS Rivergate LLC. Larger parcels flanking the estate are currently home to or have been owned by other members of the Sharp family.

Ruth and Shaheen said the estate took four years to build, with local builder Jake Tucker performing the work. The main house was completed in 2000 and totals eight bedrooms, nine bathrooms and six half-baths.

The property includes terraces overlooking the lake, a pool and a detached basketball gym.

The 2½-story house has 11 fireplaces and a finished basement with a golf simulator room, a movie room and an exercise room with sauna and steam room. A guest suite is attached to the house, and an apartment is above a detached two-car garage, which contributes to 11 cars’ worth of garage space overall.

The property also includes a detached basketball gym with bathroom, a pool with pool house, terraces with an outdoor fireplace and lake frontage with a dock and gazebo.

Ruth and Shaheen said by-appointment showings start next Tuesday, March 28. They said they’ve started scheduling appointments and have been fielding inquiries since the property hit MLS on Friday.

“We got three agents that have called to inquire further details and tell us they’re getting in touch with their clients and they’ll be calling us back to schedule,” Shaheen said. He added that interior photos of the mansion would be added to the listing when it becomes active Thursday. John Hancock Productions is handling the photography.

The estate is the centerpiece of the Rivergate community in Goochland.

With few comparable properties in the vicinity, Ruth said the asking price was based on other properties in the market that could be listed in the same price range.

“Even though a lot of homes have not sold at this price point in the Richmond market, there are homes of this size that have just not come onto the market,” Ruth said. “We may be one of the few that have come out at a price at this level, but there’s a lot of homes in the Richmond market that would equal this price point; they just haven’t come to market.”

As the centerpiece of Rivergate, Ruth described the estate as a testament to Rick Sharp’s vision for the neighborhood.

“It was always Rick’s vision to develop Rivergate,” he said. “He built everything there, he designed the lake. He designed everything out there to give it a very private setting with a gated community. I think it’s something that he’d been very proud of, based on how long they’ve lived there.”

At $9.5 million, the listing is the priciest in the Richmond area since 2019, when the 261-acre Glen Roy estate hit the market at $9.9 million. The River Road estate, about two miles east of Rivergate, ended up selling for $10 million.