Raleigh mansion, once playground of Ponzi schemer, reborn as a $6M luxury home

A sprawling North Raleigh mansion that was once owned by a real-estate fraudster, then abandoned to squatters and graffiti artists, has been reborn as $6 million palace featuring its own helipad, basketball court and floating spiral staircase.

At 13,700 square feet, the seven-bedroom house just south of Falls Lake sits on 14.2 acres of land, and it appears so extensively renovated in its Zillow ad pictures that it could be mistaken for somebody else’s castle.

Offering “unparalleled luxury,” the full spread at 12660 Boyce Mill Road includes a heated saltwater pool with a limestone deck, an elevated spa with waterfalls, seven garages, 11 bathrooms, “statement chandeliers,” a gym with a sauna — even reverse-osmosis water filtration.

Best news: the seller just knocked nearly $1 million off the price.

“Opportunities like this are rare,” its ad reads. “Experience the lifestyle this extraordinary property offers!”

House of lies

But travel back a dozen years and this extraordinary property led its owner to federal prison.

James T. Webb and his wife paid $1.5 million for the North Raleigh chateau in 2002, just five years before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused Webb of running a real-estate scheme that defrauded more than 80 investors out of at least $8.4 million — crimes that began roughly when he bought the house.

In its suit against Webb, the SEC alleged that he promised to buy distressed properties around the country, renovate and resell them, then deliver annual returns of at least 20% and as high as 114%.

Instead, he bought a fleet of luxury cars — Range Rovers, Hummers, Bentleys, BMWs and Mercedes — and took vacations to Cancun and Anguilla with investors’ money.

While his assets were frozen, Webb told the courts that his North Raleigh mansion had fallen into foreclosure. Then in 2014, a federal judge sentenced him to 27 years in prison while the FBI agent in charge of his case said Webb had “betrayed the trust of investors and left neighborhoods in two states blighted with dilapidated homes.”

Rags back to riches

Meanwhile, Webb’s stone wedding cake of a house went to pot.

When The N&O visited in 2012, it found the front door wide open, the windows boarded up and the walls covered with more graffiti than a gas-station bathroom.

Vandals had knocked out most of the plaster walls, and someone smashed the giant fish tank in the foyer, scrawling “poor little fishy” across the debris. Empty cans of Busch showed the mansion played hosts to regular visitors.

But from its real estate listing, it’s clear that the onetime eyesore has gotten an extensive makeover.

In Webb’s time, it included just 11,000 square feet and five bedrooms, but now offers 18% more space for well-heeled romping.

Since 2014 — its history with the Wake County register of deeds strangely goes no farther back — the Boyce Mill house has been owned by Chris Wilcox, the former NBA player who played for the University of Maryland when its men’s team won the 2002 NCAA Championship.

If those walls could talk, they might say, “Let’s start over together. There’s drinks by the saltwater pool.”

This story was originally published April 1, 2026 at 12:04 PM with the headline "Raleigh mansion, once playground of Ponzi schemer, reborn as a $6M luxury home."

Josh Shaffer

The News & Observer

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Josh Shaffer is a general assignment reporter on the watch for “talkers,” which are stories you might discuss around a water cooler. He has worked for The News & Observer since 2004 and writes a column about unusual people and places.