Hempfield house with 20 acres and lake listed for $1.25M

An easily recognizable home with a private lake surrounded by acres of woodlands near Hempfield Area High School is on the market for $1.25 million.

“This home was designed for entertaining,” said Scott Ludwick, the listing agent and associate broker for Berkshire Hathaway Home Services in Unity.

The four-bedroom, four-bath home, which is owned by the family of the late Verene and Joseph A. Harvey Jr., features Lake Harvey in front of the house along Route 136. The home has an open floor plan, hardwood floors and an expansive covered terrace that overlooks the private body of water. Auto enthusiasts will find there is space for five cars in the garage.

The couple bought seven acres of the property in 1971 for $42,500, according to filings in the Westmoreland County Recorder of Deeds. They purchased an additional 7.9 acres for $10,000 in 1997 and 5.6 acres in 2001 for $12,000.

There was a ranch house on the property when the Harveys bought it, but they built around the existing home to create their own special house in the 1990s.

The Harvey house stands out among houses recently listed for sale. Out of the 30,785 houses listed in February with the 19 multiple listings services in Pennsylvania, only 1,201 had asking prices between $1 million and $1.99 million, according to the latest available data from Realtors Property Resources. The Pennsylvania Association of Realtors notes that 2,065 houses in that price range sold in the past 12 months across the state. Those houses were on the market for an average of seven months, the real estate data company found.

While Ludwick, a veteran estate agent, said that he has listed other homes for sale for more than $1 million, “this one is on the high end for this market.”

Joseph Harvey Jr., who died in August 2023, was a health and physical education teacher at the Hempfield Area School District, where he also was a football and track coach. He was community-minded, serving on the board of the Mutual Aid Ambulance Service in Greensburg and as a township supervisor.

Verene L. Harvey, who died in October 2022, was a physical education teacher at Mt. Pleasant Area High School, where she was head of the department. She also served as the girls’ basketball and volleyball coach.