Chaz Neely’s Riverfront Estate Heads to Auction

Texas farm supplier and philanthropist Chaz Neely is auctioning a Central Texas luxury estate — and hoping to get almost double the price he paid for it a few months ago.

In February, Sotheby’s Concierge Auctions will start accepting bids for the home at 8536 Armstrong Road outside of Belton, a town on I-35 about halfway between Austin and Waco, according to a Concierge press release.

The 13-acre property includes a stretch of Salado Creek, which the 7,000-square-foot home overlooks. The two-story home has six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, seven fireplaces and an elevator. Designed in a French Provincial style, the home includes coffered ceilings and a shallow dome in copper above the foyer, according to the listing.

Bidding starts on Feb. 13 and ends on Feb. 28 with a live auction at The Biltmore Miami-Coral Gables in Florida. Concierge expects beds to start at about $2 million, according to marketing materials. The company hopes to drive bids up to $6 million, the asking price set by the seller with Kuper Sotheby’s International Realty agent Debbie Stevenson, who has the listing.

The previous sellers, H. Barton and Jean Jones, had listed the home for $3.8 million in March, according to Redfin. Once the Jones family hired Stevenson and decided to pursue an auction sale, Concierge opened bids at $2.1 million in June. Neely bought the property at auction in July for just under $3.2 million, according to public records. The final sale set a record for Bell County, Stevenson claimed.

The Jones family built the home in 2001, according to county records and Concierge Auctions.

Since acquiring it last year, Neely has thoroughly updated the home, Stevenson said.

“We submitted it for the ModaMiami, which is the premier East Coast global auction platform for Sotheby’s — they do the really high-end cars at the same time — and the home was accepted,” Stevenson said.

Recent high-profile auctions in the state have ended with winning bids well below asking prices. A Southlake mansion fetched a $14.2 million final bid last September after listing for $27.5 million, and a castle in Fort Worth sold at auction for $6.7 million in December after asking $11.8 million on the market.

Neely owns San Antonio Steel Company, the country’s largest wholesale supplier of agricultural fencing. A prominent donor, he and his wife Patricia support the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Austin, and endowed a faculty chair position at Texas A&M University.

The Neelys’ home at 11 Inverness Boulevard in San Antonio is also on the market, asking $7 million with Alison Neely Stone of Engel & Volkers San Antonio.