Waxhaw home with backyard skate bowl hits the market for $1.75M
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Risser says Tony Hawk once visited the bowl and praised it as better than many skateparks he'd ridden. Photo: Courtesy of Cameron Glenn with Skyvisions
A Waxhaw home hit the market last week for $1.75 million, and it's every skater's dream.
Why it matters: Longtime skater Tom Risser turned his childhood dream into a reality by adding a 3,000-square-foot concrete skate bowl in his backyard.
Context: Risser started skating at 13 and grew up building backyard ramps because there was nowhere nearby to skate.
- After buying the five-acre Waxhaw property, he first built a massive 6,040-square-foot wood-and-metal ramp. The rain made the wooden ramp slippery, and Risser eventually dreamed bigger with a concrete bowl to be protected from the elements.
- "My ultimate dream was an indoor concrete place near the ramp. My wife said go for it. Well, 26 years later, the ramp is long gone, but the dream survives," Risser said.
Zoom in: The combi bowl combines a 6-foot-deep square pool with an 8-foot-deep kidney pool and contains roughly 80 yards of concrete.
- Skatepark builder Wally Hollyday, behind several projects including two in North Carolina, traveled from California to build it.
- The bowl itself took just eight days to construct, from digging and shaping the dirt to applying the final gray coat.
- Risser tells Axios skateboard legend Tony Hawk once visited the bowl for an ESPN2 segment and praised it as better than many skateparks he'd ridden.
Layout: The home has five bedrooms plus four and a half bathrooms across 4,710 square feet.
- Inside the brick home there are 20-foot ceilings, a walk-in scullery, hardwood floors and a private guest wing.
Features: Beyond the skate bowl, there's a screened-in brick porch, fish pond, winding 150-foot creek, detached workshop space and sports court.
- Risser, president and CEO of U.S. Bottlers Machinery Company, has turned leftover scraps from the business into creative projects, including sculpture gardens on the property and elsewhere in North Carolina.
What's next: Risser's family has lived on the property for 35 years, but with the children grown and relatives moving around the country, the family is ready to pass it on.
- He's not hanging up his board, though: He plans to skate nearly every weekend at a DIY park he helped build in South Carolina.
- "If you build it, you have to share it. We hope to continue to share this magical place with future generations, so that it continues to inspire one way or another," Risser said.
Megan Despard with Dickens Mitchener & Associates has the listing.
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