Maggie nodded. “Oh yes, ma’am, I am. I’ve never been inside, but I have admired that house all my life. In fact, I always thought that Crestview was the most beautiful home in Birmingham.”
“Oh, really?” said Mrs. Dalton, obviously pleased. “Well, that’s just so lovely to know, dear. A lot of people your age don’t really appreciate the older homes. And Crestview has quite a history, you know.”
Maggie smiled. “Yes, ma’am, I do.”
Crestview Begins
Birmingham, Alabama, 1887
IN 1862, WHEN IT WAS DISCOVERED THAT THE RED DUST THAT kicked up around wagon wheels on the mountain was not dust but iron ore ground to a fine powder, word spread, and an entire industry began.
Birmingham had been named after the great iron-producing city of the same name in England. Many of Birmingham’s early founders had arrived in Alabama with images of London, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, which they had left behind, still shining in their mind’s eye, and they had determined to build something in America to match or even surpass those grand cities.
Angus Crocker was such a man. In 1885, straight from Edinburgh, Scotland, he rode in horse and buggy all the way up to the top of Red Mountain and looked into the valley below and declared to his son, Edward, “Someday, a great city will be built down there.” An architect was hired, and six months later, on that very spot, construction on Angus Crocker’s house began. He sent home to Europe for the finest stonemasons and workmen he could find, and all the materials: each stone, every brick, every plank of wood had been handpicked and shipped from his beloved Scotland. Although he was known to be tightfisted in business affairs, no expense was spared when it came to the building of his house. Two years later, after construction was completed, his foreman from Perthshire proudly handed Angus the key and declared, “There ye have it, sir, the finest of Scotland, your home on the crest of the mountain with a view to rival no man’s.” From that day forward, the house was called Crestview, and the name was engraved in stone over the archway of the front door. Carved underneath in smaller letters was the phrase THIRLED NO MORE.
After the house had been furnished and the grounds and gardens completed, Crestview had its formal opening. As it was the first of the grand homes to be built on the mountain, the event was covered by the New Age-Herald.
* * *
A CASTLE IN THE SKY
June 18, 1887—As Scottish bagpipers piped us up the long driveway, Birmingham industrialist Angus Crocker, with young son Edward at his side, welcomed us to his newly completed castle in the sky atop Red Mountain. After a short ribbon-cutting ceremony by the mayor, an awestruck crowd was given a complete tour of the home and gardens. “Perfection” is an oft overused word; however, all others fail this reporter. In this modern age of slipshod, thrown-together, lean-to affairs jumping up all over town, passing as houses, while style, workmanship, and aesthetics have been left behind to serve the new twin masters of the building trade, cheap and speedy, Crestview now stands above our city: a proud symbol of what is good and noble in the human spirit, a tribute to the might of the individual to create beauty out of stone and mortar, a beacon of light shining high on a hill, beckoning and welcoming all who view her to move up the mountain, giving us all an ideal to strive for.
* * *
The reporter, still feeling the effects of the imported scotch whiskey that had been served that afternoon, may have overstated the case, but others who had attended the celebration agreed that Crestview was not only beautiful but also well built. “This house will stand a thousand years,” said one man who knew about construction.
After Crestview went up, when all the other successful men began building their homes, they, too, brought in architects with instructions to “do me something English.” Residential areas were laid out, shade trees were planted, and streets were given names such as Essex, Carlyle, Sterling, Glenview, and Hanover Circle; imported English lampposts with round yellow globes lined each sidewalk. Soon hundreds of large limestone, red brick, and Tudor-style homes with long winding driveways were built, and charming little shopping villages—Crestline, Mountain Brook, Homewood, and English Village—popped up, with small, elegant shops that offered furniture, silver, linens, and fine china brought from London or the Cotswolds.
Every afternoon, from the day his house was completed, Angus Crocker sat out on his large stone terrace and looked down in the valley below and watched the long, wide avenues of downtown Birmingham being laid out. The city grew not gradually but in leaps and bounds. Every day, buildings climbed higher and higher until what was once a huge dark wooded area had become peppered with new houses and streets that stretched as far as the eye could see. From his terrace, he looked across the valley at the towering smokestacks of the iron and steel mills that surrounded the city, billowing thick orange smoke all the way up to Tennessee and beyond. He had seen a magic city rise up out of nothing to become the great modern industrial center of the South.
Angus had no art in his home. His art was the outline of the buildings of the city against the sky, the red and orange streaks of iron ore in the mountains, and the glowing red-hot rivers of iron and steel that ran through his mills day and night. There was no piano in the living room. The pulse and the pounding of the steam engines, iron banging on iron, steel on steel; the sound of the train whistles in the night as they pulled in and out of the downtown terminal with boxcars loaded with coal and pig iron; this was the only music Angus Crocker liked to hear.
On these nights, Angus wished his father and his grandfathers before him could know that, at last, a Crocker had climbed out of the cold, dirty coal mines and had thrown off the brass collar of serfdom forever; that a Crocker had climbed to the top of the mountain and built a castle in the sky as a monument to all their years of hard work and as a tribute to the country where a man with nothing but a dream could succeed even beyond his wildest dreams.
Perhaps in the eyes of others, what he had done to achieve it could be considered a terrible thing. But unlike his ancestors, who had left nothing behind, he had something tangible, something real to leave to Edward, his only child: a great booming city he had helped form, a vast fortune, and a name to be proud of. And no matter the dust and grime below, the air was always clean and fresh atop Red Mountain.
Congratulations All Around
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
OF COURSE, MAGGIE WISHED SHE HADN’T GIVEN ALL HER CLOTHES away, but as she found out, that wasn’t the half of it. After the meeting with Mrs. Dalton, she’d had to run back downtown to reopen her bank account and get a replacement credit card, so she could go shopping and buy food and all new toothpaste, soaps, shampoos, and underwear. And the phone company charged her an arm and a leg to turn her phone back on.
She had wanted to make sure that everything was in order before she told Ethel and Brenda the good news about Crestview. She didn’t want to get their hopes up until she was sure she really had the listing, but she had been so preoccupied with buying new clothes that she had completely forgotten that yesterday was November 4, the day of the presidential election. This morning, when she was driving to work and heard the results on the radio, she knew Brenda would be thrilled that her candidate had won.
When she got to the office, Brenda was not at work yet, but Ethel said, “Well, I just hope he can do better than the last one, though I doubt it.” Then Ethel went on her usual rant about politicians, which lasted about five minutes longer than the Hollywood rant. Maggie stood there and waited patiently until Ethel was finished and then, as casually as possible, handed her the signed papers.
“What’s this?” asked Ethel.
“Oh, just a contract to sell Crestview.”
Ethel’s mouth flew open. “What? When did this happen?”
Maggie hoped it wouldn’t sound like bragging, but she couldn’t resist. “When I called a friend and stole the listing from Babs Bingington.”
“You did?”
“I did!”
“I
can’t believe it! YEE HAW! This calls for a celebration.” Ethel then proceeded to take out the bottle of bourbon she kept in her desk and her purple plastic collapsible cup and poured herself a drink. “Hot damn, here’s to you, Maggie!” she said as she slugged it down.
A few minutes later, Brenda came straggling in looking exhausted but very happy. Maggie stood up and hugged her. “Oh, Brenda, how wonderful, I’m so happy for you. Your man won.”
“Thank you. You just can’t know what this means, coming from where we were to this, and in my lifetime? Oh, you just can’t know.”
“No, but I can imagine.”
Maggie waited until she couldn’t stand it another second and then said, “And Brenda, I have even more good news. We have a new ‘over the mountain’ listing.”
Brenda looked at her in disbelief. “No.”
“Yes! Not only a listing, but a listing I stole from Babs.”
Brenda screamed, “Girl … you didn’t!”
“I did!”
“She did!” said Ethel and poured herself another drink. Even though she was a Presbyterian, she added, “Up yours, Babs.”
After Maggie finished giving Brenda all the details, she said, “And guess what else?”
“What?”
“I have the keys!”
“You don’t!”
“I do. Let’s go. Ethel, if anyone calls, just tell them that we’re at our new listing.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Ethel.
BRENDA COULDN’T STOP talking all the way across town. “I can’t believe you got the listing away from the Beast.” She repeated this over and over, and she was still saying it as they went up the driveway to Crestview. The truth was, Maggie could hardly believe it herself. After all the years of dreaming about this house, she was about to go inside for the very first time.
So many homes that had looked fantastic on the outside had been such a disappointment once you got inside. She just hoped this wouldn’t be one of them. Maggie’s heart was pounding as she put the key in the lock, and she held her breath as she opened the big front door and they stepped into the entrance hall. The house had an almost sweet smell of wood smoke and did not have the stale musty odor of most of the older homes she had been in. They switched on the hall light and saw a black-and-white marble floor leading past a grand staircase and all the way down a long hall to the kitchen. And what a staircase! Just as Mrs. Roberts had said so many years ago, the stairs that curved gracefully all the way up to the second floor were made of the most perfect marble Maggie had ever seen. “Wow,” said Brenda. To the right of the hall was a large living room with four large French doors that opened into a sunroom. On the left was a formal dining room and a library. Maggie almost burst into tears. The inside of the house looked exactly as she had expected. No, in fact, even more beautiful than she had imagined, were that at all possible.
Angus Crocker had clearly spared no expense in building this home. Every doorknob was made of the finest cut-glass crystal. Even today, every window casement, every hinge, every lock was in perfect working order. As they walked through, Brenda said, “They sure don’t make them like they used to, do they?”
As they turned on lights and pulled open drapes, Maggie was so pleased to see that, unlike a lot of the other larger homes, which could be cold and foreboding, with big, drafty rooms, the rooms here were perfectly proportioned, and the honey-colored wood-paneled walls gave the house a warm, homey feeling. She hadn’t expected that.
When they walked through the large leaded glass doors off the back of the house and onto the huge stone terrace overlooking the entire city, Brenda said, “Lord, have mercy, how can you put a price on that view? Can you imagine sitting up here at night?”
“Yes, I can.” Maggie had imagined it many times.
Brenda turned and said, “Oh, don’t you wish Hazel was here with us?”
“Always,” said Maggie.
The kitchen was a large old-fashioned eat-in kitchen with long stainless steel counters and ribbed glass cabinets to the ceiling. Off the kitchen were the servants’ quarters, with back stairs leading up to the bedrooms on the second and third floors. As a real estate agent, Maggie knew that the older kitchen and white marble bathrooms throughout the house might seem dated to some, but she already felt herself dreading the thought of anyone changing a thing. She wouldn’t. To her, it was exactly right. To her, being in this house was like going back in time. There was something almost magical about it. She felt like she was walking around in a wonderful old English movie. She didn’t have to worry about staging this house. As far as she was concerned, it was perfect.
Since Crestview had never been for sale, and there were no existing statistics on it, she and Brenda were also measuring and counting the rooms as they went, and so far, including the servants’ quarters, they had counted five bathrooms, a living room, a library, a dining room, and six bedrooms. Maggie was falling more in love room by room; the rugs, the wallpaper, the simple but sturdy elegant furniture, the understated colors, the floral chintz sofas, everything so lovely and tasteful. Even the books on the shelves were tasteful; they hadn’t been bought by the pound by some decorator just for show—these were books that had been read. When they finished with the bedrooms on the third floor, just as they were about to go back downstairs, Brenda noticed something down at the end of the hall and walked over and saw a narrow set of dark wooden stairs. She looked for a light switch on the wall, but there wasn’t one.
“What’s up here—an attic?”
“I don’t know, but there might be bats,” Maggie said. “Let’s just wait and get the home inspector to go up there tomorrow.”
“Don’t you want to see the whole house?”
“Of course, but I don’t want to get bitten by a bat either.”
“You won’t; come on, just follow me.” Brenda pulled a flashlight out of her purse and started up the narrow stairs.
“Brenda, let’s just wait.”
But Brenda wanted to see everything. “Oh, come on … don’t be a chicken.”
“All right, but if we’re attacked by bats and get rabies, it will be all your fault.” At the top of the stairs was a large wooden door. Brenda tried to open it, but to Maggie’s relief, it was locked. “Come on, Brenda, let’s go back down.”
But Brenda handed Maggie the flashlight and said, “Hold this …”
“Oh, Lord.” Maggie stood there and held the flashlight while Brenda tried all the keys Mrs. Dalton had given her. When none fit, Maggie was glad. But then Brenda pulled a screwdriver out of her purse and started jiggling it up and down in the lock.
“Don’t ruin the door, Brenda, let’s just wait.”
But Brenda, determined to get in, said, “Stand back,” and banged the door as hard as she could with her right hip, and they heard something snap with a loud crack.
Maggie said, “What was that?”
Brenda stood perfectly still for a moment, then said, “I don’t know … I just hope to God it wasn’t my hip. I don’t want to have to spend my money on a new hip.”
“Oh, no. Does it hurt?”
Brenda waited another moment. “No, I’m all right.” Then she hauled off and hit the door again, with her other hip. This time, the nails in the rusty lock gave way and the door opened with a loud screech, just wide enough so that Brenda was able to stick her arm inside. She felt around for a light switch but couldn’t find one, so she took the flashlight from Maggie and said, “Stay here.”
Maggie was not happy about being in the dark and said, “Brenda, I wish you wouldn’t go in there,” but Brenda had already pushed herself inside. She flashed her light all around the room and saw a large window with floor-to-ceiling curtains. She walked over and pulled the cord, and the curtains, rod and all, fell to the floor in a dusty heap with a loud thud.
“Uh-oh,” said Brenda.
Maggie called from the hall, “What was that? Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine. It’s just a curtain.”
After some of the dust settled, Brenda looked around. The room seemed almost empty, except for an easy chair, a small table placed by the window, and two huge steamer trunks standing over in the corner. She flashed her light up at the beams in the ceiling and in all the corners and then called out to Maggie, “No bats. Come on in.”
Maggie stepped in and looked around and was pleasantly surprised. “This is a nice-sized room.” She walked over to the window and gazed down into the gardens. “Oh wow, you can see the whole yard from here. I’d fix this room up as an office, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you call this a bonus room?”
Brenda didn’t answer; she was in the corner, inspecting the steamer trunks. “Look at the size of these things. They’re as tall as I am. Imagine trying to check these at the airport. Hey, look, they still have an address on them.” Brenda took out a tiny feather duster from her purse and dusted the trunks off to see what was written on the large faded yellow tags.
DELIVER TO:
Mr. Edward Crocker
c/o Crestview
1800 Crest Road, atop Red Mountain
Birmingham, Alabama
SENT FROM: