Southlake mansion pulled off auction block after early sale
An 18,000-square-foot lakefront mansion in Hoover’s Southlake Estates subdivision was taken off the auction block this week after the homeowner received offers to buy over the weekend.
The 2-acre property with 780 feet of frontage on the private 100-acre-plus Indian Valley Lake was set to be auctioned today to the highest bidder at or above $995,000.
But one of the offers that came over the weekend was “several hundred thousand” more than that amount, and homeowners Terry and Sheron Johnson decided to take it, said Jeff Hathorn, a vice president and co-owner of Target Auction who negotiated the sale.
The original owner spent more than $5.5 million building the house in about 1990, Terry Johnson said. Johnson and his wife bought it more than 17 years ago and tried to auction it off in October 2014, but the highest bid they received was $1.2 million, which was not acceptable to them.
They ended up negotiating a sale of $2.1 million, but the buyer couldn’t make her mortgage payments, said Gary Gilbert, a marketing representative for Target Auction. The Johnsons, who had financed the purchase, ended up taking the house back, Gilbert said.
They marketed it for auction again this year and had more than 80 potential buyers, including three from other states, tour the property, Hathorn said.
“I was really kind of blown away by the response … especially at the out-of-state response,” he said.
This time, the buyer is a businessman from the Birmingham area who wants to raise his family there, Hathorn said. “He could see his daughter getting married here,” he said.
The European-style home at 2124 Christina Cove has seven bedrooms, seven full baths, four half baths, five fireplaces, a formal dining room with a dome ceiling, a formal living room with a ceiling that's at least 20 feet tall, a gigantic kitchen, several other living rooms and offices on all three floors.
Downstairs, there is a media room with a giant movie/TV screen. There also is a workout room with a mini-kitchen and game room. A spiral staircase next to the game room leads up to the kitchen.
Off the kitchen is a large pantry with a walk-in cooler and a laundry room. A dumbwaiter near the laundry room serves all three floors.
The house also has a wine cellar, a three-vehicle garage on the main level and a two-vehicle garage on the bottom floor.
Outside, there's a terrace with an eating area. Stairs lead down to a pool with a waterfall pouring into it and an underground pool house that has a bar and bathroom. Another set of stairs leads to a fire pit down closer to the lake.
There's also a pier, a dock and a full-size tennis court. The tennis court also has a small bathroom beside it.
The house has limestone and marble flooring, as well as a limestone exterior and tile roof.