If you go
* What: Auctioning off of 980 acres divided into 24 tracts in Rhea County * Where: On-site, at property near 984 New Bethel Rd., Dayton * When: Saturday, May 23 at 11 a.m. * Online: www.riverauction.com * Contact: John Dixon and Associates at 423-825-0049 How it works * The auction is on a reserve basis, and is not an absolute auction. Minimum bids will be required based on property value. * Property inspection before the auction is available by appointment along with information packets. * Purchase price will be highest bid plus 10 percent buyer's premium. * Between 10 to 20 percent of purchase price is due on auction day, as a nonrefundable earnest deposit. The cost of recording a deed and transfer taxes are due at closing, on or before 30 days after sale. Surveying of intermediate line costs will be shared by owners with adjacent properties. * Online bids will be accepted with a registered credit card. Final contracts will be delivered and earnest money due within 24 hours receipt of contracts. A $5,000 fine will be levied against online buyers who do not deliver earnest money within 24-hour window. * Visit www.riverauction.com for more or call John Dixson and Associates at 423-825-0049.
DAYTON, Tenn. -- Edyth Buxton was fine until she started talking about the memories she and her husband, John, have made here.
Then, tears.
Because getting lost while driving a Jeep deep into the heart of these 980 acres was a normal Sunday outing for the couple. And because trolling around the backwaters of the Tennessee River on a pontoon boat was, too.
Because this was John's playground -- and in many ways, a reflection of his identity.
And because losing this property is a reminder that Edyth Buxton is losing her husband to Alzheimer's.
But it's reality now.
On May 23, the property that Edyth and John acquired over 24 years after retiring early in Dayton will go up for auction, sold in 24 parcels the Saturday before Memorial Day.
Much of the land contains virgin forest, never touched by a machine. Much of it fronts the Tennessee River, and much still borders swaths of federal- and state-protected island and shoreline acreage.
The anticipation of the sale is hard -- or, the letting go is, said Edyth.
But the upkeep on the property is too much, the taxes are too much, the constant trespassing by four-wheelers is too much, and the cost of treating John's Alzheimer's is mounting.
One of the Buxtons' daughters suggested an auction after she and Edyth attended a property auction recently. It seemed perfectly reasonable after that. Edyth contacted Chattanooga auction and marketing firm John Dixon and Associates.
Unbelievable, said Henry Glascock, manager and broker at his auction firm and the Chattanooga John Dixon and Associates office, when he saw the property.
"It's unheard of," he said. "The property is big timber. It has miles of shoreline. It has pasture land. It has little mountaintops that just have this incredible view of the Tennessee River. It has a little bit of everything."
***
Savage Glascock, younger brother of Henry and real estate analyst and consultant at John Dixon, threw the ATV in four-wheel-drive and started the climb.
The vehicle ascended, growling and slowing and threatening to stop from exhaustion but digging deeper nonetheless at Glascock's coaxes. He'd put the ATV through a tree gap just big enough for a four-seater Kawasaki.
John and Edyth Buxton bought 980 acres of riverfront land years ago, and it will now be sold in Dayton.His driving was about like John Buxton's, said Edyth, turning around and raising her voice over the fuming motor: "Fearless."
A stream emerged finally, and following it, Glascock approached a roughly 2.5- to 3-acre lake that sits in a high place surrounded by trees somewhere south of the property's geographic center.
It's Edyth's favorite spot, where she and John used to picnic.
A fish raised its head out of the water near the bank, feeding on something near the lake's surface.
"There are tons of fish in there," said Edyth.
She and John never stocked the lake. The best guess is that fish eggs stuck to the feathers and feet of ducks and geese have been accidentally transplanted up to the ridge-top lake from the river.
The Buxtons love the land -- "tree huggers" jokes Glascock -- and Edyth says John won't even cut a tree unless it's necessary.
Even in the fight against stage five Alzheimer's, one of John's favorite hobbies is go out and tend the lawn and plants at the couple's Double S Road home. The crepe myrtle trees remind Edyth of John.
Continuing an afternoon tour of the Buxton property, Glascock drove down to the river's edge, where a narrow, muddy trail crossed an isthmus connecting the Buxtons' property to a peninsula owned by Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. Something passes from the rustling reeds on either side often enough to keep weeds from growing in the path.
Having state-owned land at the front door of this tract will provide some security to whoever owns this land next, said Glascock.
Nearby, on a muddy road leading back to the New Bethel Road site of the May 23 auction, a white-tail deer sprang from the brush. And later, in a broad open field, a big turkey strode toward trees at the sound of Glascock's ATV.
"There hasn't been a time that I've come out here that I haven't seen something," said Glascock.
After more than an hour rumbling around in the ATV, Glascock drove around about 300 acres, or less than a third of John Buxton's Rhea County playground.
***
All of this was going to be developed at one time, said Edyth.
She and John had plenty of real estate experience when they moved to Dayton in 1988, after taking early retirement in California.
Both are brilliant, each having had successful careers in aerospace engineering and technology. They met while working at McDonnell Douglas, an aerospace manufacturer in California that merged with Boeing in 1996.
John was an electrical engineer. Edyth was in systems analysis and inventory management. John later went to work at Lockheed Martin and had an engineering hand in the internal systems of the SR-71 Blackbird, the pre-Concorde military aircraft that made record time flying between London and New York City in the 1970s.
John and Edyth got into real estate part-time in California, buying properties and using their evenings working on them, every night an unorthodox date night for the two. By the time they moved to Tennessee, the Buxtons had bought and sold about 14 properties.
They meant to retire in Chattanooga. Edyth wanted to be on the water. John wanted a big yard.
The day of discovery came when the Buxtons flew into Chattanooga to house hunt and, unsatisfied with their results, hopped in the car and drove north on Highway 27. They passed Hixson and Soddy-Daisy.
John and Edyth Buxton bought 980 acres of riverfront land years ago, and it will now be sold in Dayton."And we wound up in Dayton," says Edyth.
They found 300 acres of land in the Frazier community that had belonged to a church but somehow wound up in foreclosure.
The Buxtons loved it. It included a house on Double S Road that they didn't get to see before flying back to California -- not that it mattered.
"By the time we got back to California," said Edyth, "we had bought the house. We just fell in love with this place," she remembers.
***
There's a wooded point jutting into an inlet known as Scroggins Slew at the northern-most tip of the Buxtons' property.
"This tract here is the cream," said Glascock.
On a sunny Friday afternoon, a bass fisherman glided by, whipping a lure into the shallow water and hoping for a strike.
"Nelson Scroggins' family has had that property over there for years," said Edyth, pointing across the green inlet. "When we bought this back in '88, he was so concerned we were going to do something with it."
But the Buxtons set their immediate sights on a small, 24-room motel in Dayton on Highway 27 near the hospital. They bought the motel and went about remodeling it. John added 48 rooms, an indoor pool and a restaurant. Eventually, he obtained a Best Western franchisee license. He sold the motel in 2000.
All the while, he added to his playground on the river, a piece here and a piece there.
"What we had planned on doing was like a Leisure World in California," said Edyth.
Then, John suddenly struggled to remember the names of tools, like screwdrivers and hammers.
It was Alzheimer's. There were multiple trips to see specialists in Atlanta, but John's condition deteriorated.
Edyth began to understand that John would eventually need 24-hour care -- and that it was going to cost them something: their paradise.
There are few such sites anywhere in America with 1,000-acre, riverside tracts with old-growth forest on them, and government-protected properties all around anymore, Glasscock said.
It will require some work adding well water and septic systems, but the property is also zoned in the Frazier Elementary School district, a 2011 federal Blue Ribbon School and arguably the best school in Rhea County, public or private.
Glascock said he isn't worried about whether the property will sell. It will not be an absolute auction, and there are fees associated with participation as well as premium and security payments required, but the property has been marketed in Chattanooga media for weeks.
In an ideal world, Edyth said the state or a conservation group would purchase the property and keep it just as it is.
But time just isn't on John's, or her, side.
It's too bad, said Glascock.
"It's a one-of-a-kind, not-going-to-happen-again opportunity," he said.
Contact staff writer Alex Green at agreen@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6480.
John and Edyth Buxton bought 980 acres of riverfront land years ago, and it will now be sold in Dayton.