thewashingtonpost.
saturday,april4,2020eZ14
National Forest and is close to
Grayson Highlands S tate Park.
“This property would appeal to
wealthy families that are looking
for a private mountain, family re-
treat,” c o-listing agent R ob Drag of
Premier Sotheby’s International
Realty wrote in an email. “A lso
given the current events of the
coronavirus, this property would
appeal to survivalists that are
looking to escape a pandemic or
major natural disaster.”
The property i s listed at $ 17 m il-
lion.
[email protected]ty e ssentially acts a s a secure com-
pound as it is. Additionally, the
elevation of High Mountain offers
additional security as trespassers
would have an incredibly tough
time making it up the steep cliffs
due to the height and dense foli-
age.”
To h elp m aintain that high l evel
of security, neither the owner nor
the real estate a gents would r eveal
publicly the property’s address,
though they said it is about a one-
to two-hour flight from the D.C.
area, depending on the type of
aircraft. It backs up to JeffersonGentry wrote.
Security was at the forefront of
the owner’s mind when he de-
signed the property.
“He did conduct thorough in-
vestigations of his neighbors,
what f ew t here are, and e ven hired
a nationally recognized security
defense company to offer recom-
mendations of further securitiza-
tion of the property,” Gentry
wrote. “What they found was hav-
ing the National Forest border
much of t he p roperty, its r ural and
remote location, and relatively
few p rivate neighbors, t he p roper-one of t he c abins, it is designed in a
way that could be replicated
across the top of the mountain for
multiple current and f uture build-
ings.... Additionally, High Moun-
tain features a multitude of work-
ing wells and naturally fed water
sources.”
The property can be reached
through a g ated entry off the m ain
road, but it might be simpler to fly
there. A helipad and a g rassy l and-
ing strip are at the southernmost
end of the mountain. There is also
a hangar to store a small plane or
helicopter.
There are three cabins on the
mountain. The first is on a knoll
overlooking a pond stocked with
fish. A large windmill towers over
it. The one-bedroom, one-bath-
room timber-frame house has a
wraparound porch and a loft that
can be used for guests or an office.
It also comes with a detached
three-bay garage a nd workshop.
The second cabin has a
t wo-story porch, a stone fireplace
with a timber mantel and an at-
tached two-car garage. It has four
bedrooms and two bathrooms.
The third cabin has two bed-
rooms, four bathrooms and a loft.
The master bedroom has a vault-
ed, exposed-beam ceiling and a
wall of windows with views of the
mountains and valley.
“Each [cabin] enjoys amazing
sunrise and sunset views to the
east and west because the moun-
tain’s ridge runs north to south,”BY KATHY ORTONFor those who want to take so-
cial distancing to the next level
and have the means to d o so, High
Mountain in Virginia’s Appala-
chian Mountains offers an escape
not only from the coronavirus but
also from a cyberattack on the
power grid or a catastrophic ter-
rorist event.
The owner, an entrepreneur
and real estate developer, started
acquiring the land 35 years ago
with the intention of building a
highly secure fly-in community of
estate homes. His plan was to di-
vide the mountain into roughly
20 -acre parcels for individual
owners.
But after selling two parcels, he
decided that he wanted to keep
High Mountain to himself, and he
bought out the other owners. The
350-acre survivalist retreat is self-
sufficient, with off-the-grid infra-
structure that includes a wind t ur-
bine, solar panels and several wa-
ter sources. Although electricity
from the grid flows to the entire
property, the solar and wind sys-
tems provide backup in case the
grid goes down.
The owner of High Mountain
engineered a nd tested off-the-grid
designs, looking for the one that
would work best in a disruptive
national or world e vent, a ccording
to c o-listing agent Jason Gentry o f
Premier Sotheby’s International
Realty. “This includes both wind
and solar energy,” G entry wrote in
an email. “A lthough this system
currently only provides power tohouse of the Week
A Virginia
mountain
retreat for
all crises
Photos by Joe Purvisappalachian Mountains,
Virginia
$17 million
Features: t he self-sufficient,
survivalist retreat has an off-the-
grid infrastructure that includes a
wind turbine, solar panels and
several water sources. the
property has three cabins, several
outbuildings, a pond, a helipad, a
grassy airstrip and a hangar.
Bedrooms/bathrooms: 9 /8
(three cabins combined)
lot size: 350 acres
listing agents: rob Drag and
Jason Gentry, Premier sotheby’s
international realty
For more photos of this house
and other houses for sale in the area,
go to washingtonpost.com/realestate.ABOVE: An aerial
view of the High
Mountain retreat in
Virginia’s
Appalachian
Mountains. The wind
turbine, solar panels
and pond are part of
the property’s off-the-
grid infrastructure,
intended to make it
self-sufficient in a
catastrophic event.
AT LEFT: The master
bedroom in one of
three cabins on the
property, which also
has a helipad and a
grassy airstrip.