Would you pay $2.59M in cash for this unique SC lake home? One businessman did. Take a look

The Castle on Lake Keowee has been a mansion in the making for more than 50 years and now a new owner intends to finish it as his primary home.

Several families have owned the property that began as a simple brick ranch-style home on the newly developing reservoir built by Duke Power Co. Now the house covers 11,500-square feet with a turret and extensive rockwork, Lake Keowee on three sides.

The inside remains unfinished. That will be the work of Kevin Whitaker, who owns Cadillac and Chevrolet dealerships in Greenville. Earlier this month, Whitaker paid $2,590,000 in cash for the house and 1.45 acres.

“There is nothing like it on the lake,” said Marsha Burrell, a Realtor with Allen Tate who listed and sold the house.

Burrell declined to name the buyer, saying only he was an Upstate businessman.

The South Carolina Secretary of State lists Whitaker as the agent for the LLC that bought the property and his car dealership as the address. He could not be reached for comment.

The seller was Carl Martin Welcker, the managing partner of Alfred H. Schütte KG, a German company started in 1880 by his great-grandfather as an import business. By the mid-1910s, the Cologne-based company was making machine tools. It’s now an international company.

He paid $560,000 in 2011 for the under-construction castle that had gone into foreclosure. At the time his in-laws lived on Lake Keowee, but moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky, some years later.

To date, he’s spent $1.6 million on the outside and framing and other work inside, Burrell said

She approached Welcker about selling the house. He flew from his home in Cologne, Germany, and agreed.

Burrell sold it in a month.

Three lakefront lots make up the property, which if sold today would go for at least $1 million each. A previous owner paid $4,500 apiece in the 1960s. Burrell said. That would be about $40,000 in today’s money — representative of how much Lake Keowee property has increased in value.

Burrell said most lakefront homes now sell for $1 million and some go as high as $6 million.

At the Castle at Lake Keowee, a gated entrance comes off a cul-de-sac in the Normandy Shore development on Heritage Road in Seneca.

The house is stone with a green roof made of recycled tires.

As planned now, there would be seven bedrooms, including a main suite with a large fireplace and a two-story library in the turret. The kitchen and living areas round out that floor.

A curved staircase leads to the ground level, designed to accommodate five bedrooms and three baths. An old-world-style wine cellar is built into the ground.

Extensive rock work and stone arches lead to the water’s edge and gazebo, which will include a kitchen, entertaining area and underground storage. Columns are pre-wired, which will add to the home’s lightshow from the lake at night.

A rock sea wall was built before Lake Keowee was completed. The attached garage holds four cars.

Burrell said builders she has spoken with estimate it would take two years to finish the house. There’s no way to tell what it will cost because price and quality vary so much in building materials.