Surrounded by palms, professionally landscaped gardens, and towering, mature Italian Cypress trees, this Morningside residence brings a style of home architecture that’s all-too-rare around Atlanta.
It also brings the sort of random history you’re proud to bring up at cocktail parties.
Built around 1930 on Morningside’s Sherwood Road, a couple of blocks from the northern edges of Piedmont Park, this Spanish Colonial-style beauty appears to have passed the test of time with flying colors.
It’s set to list with Compass next week for $1.8 million, and agent David Johnson provided Urbanize Atlanta with a photographic sneak peek. “In our preliminary efforts to prep [and] show the property to agents, it’s drawn rave reviews,” says Johnson. “Should be a hot commodity.”
Legend has it this stylish nonagenarian was built—like a handful of others on the quiet street in the Spanish Colonial style—for supervisors who were managing construction of Midtown’s iconic Biltmore Hotel.
More recently, the property served as Marilyn Monroe’s former Hollywood hills residence, later purchased by model Anna Nicole Smith, when Lifetime put together a made-for-TV movie about Smith’s tragic life nine years ago.
Today, the property brings four bedrooms and four bathrooms in 3,733 square feet—and no shortage of decorative plaster and archway architecture indicative of the style. It’s bookended by a blooming array of front-yard plantings and a saltwater PebbleTec swimming pool.
In between is a cozy chef’s kitchen, tiles said to be imported from Spain, and wooden beams reclaimed from old churches in Savannah. So much texture and geometry add warmth and intrigue to the interior, but it could be enough to give minimalists the heebie-jeebies.
An added bonus, Johnson notes, is the downstairs with a separate entrance, kitchenette, and private bedroom and bathroom that has potential to be a separate apartment.
Records show the home last traded for $1.17 million in 2016. Since then, the kitchen and at least a couple of bathrooms have been redone, as the place was generally refreshed with brighter wall colors.
Have a gander in the above gallery—no passport required.
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