Exceptional Design for Luxury Living You Can Bet the Mortgage on Sabrina Sutton

Sabrina Sutton at Mortgage Hall

Photo by M.J. McAteer

Exceptional Design for Luxury Living You Can Bet the Mortgage on Sabrina Sutton

By M.J. McAteer

Sabrina Sutton didn’t want to be photographed sitting down, and whatever the reason, sitting down on the job really isn’t an option anyway.

Sutton is the proprietor of Mortgage Hall, a 121-acre estate on Snake Hill Road in Middleburg. The centerpiece is a gracious 1850s Georgian mansion at the end of a sweeping driveway. The house requires constant, even obsessive, attention to keep up its appearances. That’s even more true now that Sutton has turned the estate into a vacation rental and wedding venue.

It took a long view, though, to spot the estate’s potential to be anything but a tear-down when Sutton and her thenpartner first came to see it in 2013. Once owned by an heiress to the Sears fortune, the property was in foreclosure and had been empty and untended for a decade.

Leaves had accumulated in the front hall, and light fixtures, sinks and toilets had been stripped away. Pipes were broken, the roof was in rough shape, and the grounds showed the same neglect as the house, with vines choking the boxwoods, trees needing to be trimmed or taken down and voracious weeds compromising views that otherwise stretched to the mountains.

“Every single thing on this property needed something,” Sutton said.

Restoring the house and property required buckets of elbow grease, almost exclusively supplied by Sutton, who took sole possession in 2019.

She does most of the cleaning and laundry for the 10-bedroom house, as well as weed-whacking, mowing and planting. She recently bush-hogged a trail through the woods so guests could better commune with nature.

Sutton also caulks bathtubs, paints, troubleshoots toilets and does carpentry jobs. Recently, she’s been renovating her horse barn. She’ll have to strip and revamp 24 stalls and hopes her two teenage daughters might pitch in. Otherwise, she admitted, “I have a hard time letting other people do things.”

Those “things” include handling logistics for guest stays and arrangements for wedding parties, now up to 20 a year.

Geralyn Moore, who got married in 2019 on the grassy circle in front of the mansion, offered enthusiastic on-line comments typical of former guests. She called the estate “equal parts elegance, history, comfort and coziness. A magical place.”

Mortgage Hall has become a popular short-term destination for a smallish groups in search of a peaceful and secluded horse country retreat--bachelorette parties, friends getaways, family reunions and, pre-Covid, corporate retreats.

“I’m thriving in the middle of a pandemic,” Sutton said.

She rents the full house so guests have privacy and social distancing, while she and her daughters reside in a modest cottage on the estate.

Sutton, 38, started in the hospitality industry at 16 as the face at the front desk of a country club. She later worked for Hilton Hotels, then pursued a degree in business management.

“I wanted to be my own boss,” she said. “I know what I’m good at, and I am passionate about it.”

She also sees Mortgage Hall as a big step along her entrepreneurial path.

“I’m brainstorming about bringing in someone, not to take it over, but to run it for me,” she said. That way Sutton can try to find another property to restore to its rightful glory.

The next improvement will be a new roof on the chicken coop so her guests might enjoy gathering their own breakfast eggs. For once, though, she’s hired someone else to do that job. After all, she still has stalls to strip.