This unique $1.5M Southside home has an incredible story—also, it’s on the market now

Zillow Gone Wild fans of Birmingham, this one’s for you. We recently came across one of the most unusual homes we’ve ever seen—right here in Southside—and had to learn more. Keep reading to find out what we discovered about this $1.5M home.

But first, the facts about the mystery home at 2517 3rd Avenue South

• Location: 2517 3rd Avenue South, Birmingham, AL 35233
• Size: 4,266 square feet; 7,405 square foot lot
• Rooms: 1 bed, 2 bath
• Property type: single family, with potential for commercial and residential use or full redevelopment
• Garage: 3-car

Check out the full listing, or reach out to Colby Mouchette, colby.mouchette@eds-america.com or Bart Holmes, bart.holmes@eds-america.com to check it out for yourself.

2517 3rd Avenue South has had many lives

Curious about who would own such a home, we did a little digging, which led to this site for The Watch Shop. The similarities between the photos of the house and on the site gave us the idea we were on to something.

Once we saw that the site said “In loving memory of Daniel Bailey,” we went to the obituaries, where we first met Daniel Bailey, a character we wish we’d known in real life.

This led to a phone call with Talitha Bailey, who moved out of the home a month ago.

“It really is a mystery home—it was designed that way. During the last part of Dan’s career as a car mechanic working in car restorations, he and his dad built a shop. For a mechanic’s shop, it was small and very private, and since he was working on very expensive, high-end European cars, he didn’t need a whole lot of space.”

Talitha Bailey

In case you’re wondering, he worked on Ferraris, Aston Martins, Rolls Royces and other similar types of cars until a bad car accident in September 1997 led to the end of his auto restoration business and the beginning of a new life.

Moving in to 2517 3rd Avenue South

Talitha shared the journey she and Dan made from seeing this spot as Dan’s workplace to making it home.

“We decided to move in almost a decade after Dan transitioned from working as an auto mechanic. First, he started taking his own watches apart and putting them back together, teaching himself how to do watch repair. Over time that developed into another career for him—he had people bringing him their Rolexes from across the Southeast.

Watches take up a lot less space than car repair. In 2006, we converted part of the shop to living space and moved downtown, before downtown was downtown. We love urban living, and were early adopters.”

Talitha Bailey

Dan’s father, J. Edward Bailey, designed the interior space. He also designed Samford, most of Shoal Creek, and a number of houses and buildings all over Mountain Brook.

Over the course of a summer, Dan, Ed, Dan’s two sons and Talitha built the house side of the shop.

Talitha explained it was “with all of us swinging the hammers, hanging the sheetrock and doing all the things.”

Downtown early adopters

Talitha explained that when they moved in, downtown was deserted, with nothing going on.

“Every year, we heard talk of a grocery store downtown, then Publix came, which was huge. Now Avondale is hopping. Over the last 5 years, everything has blown up all around us, and it’s been lots of fun to watch.

For a long time, we were the only people living within blocks of us. Now, there are apartment buildings everywhere. There’s another work/live around the corner, some in Lakeview and a couple downtown. It’s turning into such a cool neighborhood; everybody knows each other.

We’re right in the middle of midtown, downtown, Lakeview and Pepper Place. There are endless things to do, so if anyone’s thinking about it, they should just jump in.”

Talitha Bailey

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