Tasteful friends: the mansion that time forgot in Birmngham, Alabama

it reminds me of Southfork.

Who is the photo to the right of Roger Moore?

All those couches

I like the mint-green bedroom carpeting that looks like it’s full of cigarette burns.

That's a lot of house. How bad is the water damage? It looks quite like the home of an uncle of mine, an old patrician doctor with with family money.

i like untouched homes. they haven't had a bunch of bullshit put into them that one will have to rip out.

if you are not from the area, the place is only habitable weather-wise from late October to early April. the rest of the year it is an open air swamp.

good for snowbirds, but not much else.

The room with the music equipment looks like it has lots of water damage. Many rooms in fact seem to have differed maintenance to the point where it looks like the beginning stages of grey gardens. Also, just how many guest homes/apartments does this place have? there are so many kitchens and that is the largest butler pantry I have ever seen. It's interesting, especially the wall safe in the basement, but it needs so much work. You would also have to live in Alabama!

r6 and it only has AC window units to boot!

$2 million for a non-updated house in Alabama?!? No. Maybe if fully updated - but regardless way too highly priced.

I love all the rooms ! Im so sick of "open concept" . It looked like everything was dusty , I wonder how long its been sitting empty ? Lots of lovely things in too .But being in Alabama pretty much killed any thoughts on wether I liked it or not.

everything in Alabama will have weather damage to some degree. for months out of the year, humidity is 85% or higher. AC exacerbates indoor moisture collection inside walls (like condensation on the outside of your ice-cold beverage). the rest of the year, it is torrentially raining and then you get a heat spike and that fallen rain turns into more humidity instantly.

as i said, if you want to be a snowbird it is an ok place. you can even get humidity here in winter and in early spring. imagine feeling cold AND damp without any rain whatsoever.

aside from the strong sunlight beating down, rain kills buildings. and most are NOT built in a such a way to deter that rain. and then the AC issue mentioned above kills them more. everything decays here rapidly. it is almost tropical. possibly slightly less so with Hoover's microclimate and tree coverage.

and yes, Alabama is not really the kind of place you can live your big city lifestyle, even though there are amenities that give you the illusion that you can. it is a place to be poor adequately in, while you roast in your old age. lots of retirees here.

Love it!

A little to rustic for me.

Is that FLOCKED WALLPAPER I see in the foyer???

Okay, it's ivory and fairly tasteful as flocked wallpaper goes, but FLOCKED WALLPAPER!!!

Quick! My smelling salts!

The Pepto-Bismol pink dining room pictures came up!

The coach house and guest house are currently providing almost $25,000.00/year in rental income.

It’s awfully low to the ground - almost as though it’s on slab instead of a basement or crawl space. Was it originally a single family home?

I don’t like it. It seems more “run down institution” than “grand home that has seen better days.”

Whoever priced it is delusional.

R18 - so true - I would have put it at $750K. I'm no realtor, but for Alabama with water damage and no updates in 70 years, they're fucking high to think they would get almost $2 million.

Admittedly, there appear to be a lot of nice homes in that area and it's not too far from Birmingham, but...

It's overpriced for the area and for the lack of updates and for the deferred maintenance. And it's not even in Mountain Brook...

The fireplaces and wood trim are lovely but the decor is 1960s awful.

I like it. It looks like relatives houses I remember from childhood—very southern WASP.

It's just okay. The exterior is unassuming to a fault, and the speckled monkey vomit stone is just ugly. Inside it's a comfortable house with some nice rooms (the large living room, the big pantry with the sofa, some of the hallways and bedrooms) but it doesn't come together as anything special. The architect had a serviceable knowledge of what he was doing, but no real finesse.

Other commenters are right: in Alabama, $2M should buy a fucking brilliant house. This isn't one of them.

are we sure this isn't Miss Lindsay's home? I could see Miss Lindsay living in a place like this - one room for his Barbie collection and another room for all his leather duds

The senior grip bar in the shower sold me on this beauty.

Four kitchens and not a proper range hood to be seen.

Smell Miss Margaret Mitchell at R20!

r2 - Its Peter Ustinov.

R10 I agree with you about open concept homes.

I loathe going to someone’s home sitting in the living room and smelling the homeowners last three meals as if I were sitting in the kitchen.

Just as I don’t want to smell bathroom smells outside the bathroom I don’t want the smell of food permeating every room of the house.

That room with the sofa and the sink and faucets on the other side of the room is strange. I can't figure out what it was meant for originally. I have to assume it's just off the kitchen so maybe it was originally some sort of butler's pantry.

Too expensive.

I like it overall, dont know the area whatsoever (not from USA) so will take everyones word for it that its way overpriced

Like some of the rooms a lot, but that fuschia dining room is a step too far for me and I like colour and lots of it

[quote]That room with the sofa and the sink and faucets on the other side of the room is strange. I can't figure out what it was meant for originally.

Before we got the cable, we used to wile away the evenings taunting the help as they cleaned up after supper.

Half a million less and yet so much more...

A handsome house without many caveats. The kitchen and bathrooms are a bit Property Brothers generic, but a vastly better house.

And the R34 house has a slightly larger lot 2.1 acres as opposed to 2.0 acres for the OP house. I'm guessing the OP house will sit in the market a long time with many price drops before it sells.

Definitely a superior house at R34 but personally I hate all that dark wood panelling... too gloomy.., .you could paint but that feels wrong too! I couldn't come into my house and hate the center of it every time.

R28, I was guessing Peter Ustinov as well. The picture looks like a shot from Quo Vadis.

The cross slats on the wood paneling at R34 are at right angles: for that Henry VIII feel the house is desperate for the cross slats should be a little bit 'off'. The paneling can be lightened so that it is much brighter and more inviting. R34's place has a lot going for it. Property taxes seem ok too. Unfortunately house and garden will require staff to come in at least three times a week to keep it all going.

I'd take one of the small houses.

You can buy most of the State of Alabama for $2 million.

R40 I agree! Alabama has the lowest property tax in the nation.

I live in Northeast Alabama and in my small town of 1500 many people own two homes and don’t even bother to rent out their second home. They just stay empty.

It’s usually their late parents homes and the children are too sentimental to sell the home but they don’t want anyone else living there. They’re just empty homes that serve as shrines to their parents.

Within a 5 mile radius of my home I know of 20 to 25 empty homes where the owner has no intention of renting the house.

It's nice to see old school rich people spaces, with kitchens built for the help and bathrooms built for washing up. None of this pleasure palace bullshit.

Fuck all that shit! It's still Alabama!!

The Tudor pile has the most beautiful garages I’ve ever seen. I want to live over the garage but not in Alabama. Where was Driving Miss Daisy set?

Why hasn't anybody mentioned what appear to be gravestones in the backyard! Does the seller retain an easement to visit the dead or do they want as much distance from them as possible.

The proportions are weird, I think because of the additions. Lots of window units--fine for a small house but a nightmare for one with a million rooms.

The idea that this place generates income sounds great until you consider the water damage, the need for landscaping (esp. in the back) and repainting the place. I'm guessing that all of the bathrooms are outdated, too. Also getting some better appliances.

R11 you are an ignorant jackass, I certainly don't have water in my walls running down, we have things called ROOFS that prevent that. What a cunt. Where do you live in NYC the most rat infested city on earth? You should find someone with Covid and lick their mouth out.

R46 demonstrates real Southern charm.

R11 is right about the oppressive humidity and the lack of relief in winter. You never really feel warm much of the time in a southern winter.