The city of Redfield has contracted to sell the Little Rock home of the late Jennings Osborne to an engineer/biochemist for $240,000, though the deal won't close until February 2017. The house once appraised for $1.6 million.
Little Rock developer Kourosh Malek bought the 11,700-square-foot house at 4 Robinwood Drive when it sold at auction in 2012 and deeded it to Redfield as a tax write-off. Osborne, a well-known businessman and philanthropist, drew thousands of gawkers to the house facing Cantrell Road with his ostentatious Christmas light displays.
Osborne died three years ago at age 67. After his death, his family faced some financial and legal troubles, and the patriarch's primary residence was sold at auction, along with numerous personal belongings and memorabilia.
The house at 3 Robinwood Drive, also on the Osborne compound, fell into foreclosure and was recently sold by Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. to the John McCormack and Deana McCormack Trust for $253,999, according to a warranty deed filed at the Pulaski County courthouse.
The future of another former Osborne house at 5 Robinwood is uncertain for now, said Jessica Johnston, the real estate agent who sold the house at 4 Robinwood to its new owner, John Johnson. Johnston and Johnson are romantically involved, and she is helping him rehabilitate the house, they said. The agent is working on listing 5 Robinwood and said she has a buyer for it.
Johnson paid $20,000 at the time he inked the deal with Redfield and agreed to pay another $20,000 in two lease payments, one of which he has already made. The remaining $200,000 will be due at closing. He has been remodeling a 2,200-square-foot apartment above the house's multicar garage while working with contractors to restore the rest of the place.
Malek's 2013 contract with Redfield called for the city to sell the house at 90 percent of its appraised value or wait 30 months to offer it for sale. Redfield has about 1,300 people and is southeast of Little Rock.
Johnson has restored or replaced plumbing, power and heating and air to the space and has added new flooring, cabinets and countertops. Electricity to the home's electronic gates and to the pool are also a priority.
"The history of the house was probably the most appealing factor," Johnson said. "I remember driving by it as a child and going to see the Christmas lights. I wondered what the people might be like that lived there."
With the property's tall brick wall and iron gate, "it's got a certain mystique to it," he added. He lives in Little Rock, but travels globally as an engineer for an oil company.
"I had a lot of respect for Mr. Osborne and how he lived his life. I think he was a very, very generous man," the new owner said.
Built in 1969, the home has six bathrooms, according to Pulaski County assessor's office. Johnston said the house also has 10 bedrooms, three kitchens and a hot tub and sauna.
"I have loved this property for years and it has been sitting it vacant for years," she said. "There's just not anything else in Little Rock like it."
In the time the house has been vacant, transients and looters have descended on it and trashed it, said listing agent Jordan Haas, principal broker of Rental Realty. Copper was stolen from the house and "someone fell through the roof," he said. All told, the losses from destruction are more than $300,000. An outline of restoration work by Johnson, the buyer, is included in the sales contract.
"We had higher offers but they didn't include any money up front," Haas said. Just having someone occupy the property and halt its decline is worth a lot, he added.
"That was a big selling point for the city of Redfield. They were well removed from the day-to-day [management] of that property, so they were excited to just get the property under control," Haas said.
Business on 07/15/2015