If the house looks familiar, it should. It was the fictional home of Julia Sugarbaker in the TV show Designing Women.
The people who built this house in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1881 had quite a story.
We'll start with the husband - Angelo Marre. He came to Little Rock by way of Memphis, Tennessee trailing a resume as a murderer, an ex-Memphis policeman, an ex-saloon keeper, a convicted thief/ex-con, and a kept man. That last job description filled his pockets with money of dubious distinction. It was inherited from the estate of a Memphis madame, whose will stated that the money should go to Angelo "in remembrance for my and his love for each other." Well, then. Hello, Little Rock.
Not long after that, on a side trip to Fort Smith, he met Jennie Brizzolara - a woman who had married her uncle when she was 17 years old. At the time she met Angelo, Uncle Hubby (sorry, couldn't resist) had gotten himself elected Mayor and the two of them now had a child. Apparently, Angelo's good looks (or hefty inheritance...or maybe his stellar resume) persuaded Jennie to turn her back on both husband and child and start a new life with him in Little Rock. Just to make herself official, we suppose, she then married Angelo in 1877 (even though she hadn't bothered to divorce Uncle Hubby). But who's counting? Hello, Little Rock, indeed.
The Memphis madame's money enabled Angelo to launch a new saloon business in Little Rock - which boomed - and resulted in a new residence for him and the missus on the most fashionable street in town.
Villa Marre was a masterpiece - a combination of Second Empire and Italianate design whose architectural pedigree far outshone the personal pedigree of its owners. As proof positive that good design knows no time-frame, the house remains a show-stopper to this day.
Following the deaths of Angelo and Jennie, and a succession of owners who gutted the original interiors during a series of poorly-thought-out renovations, Villa Marre was used for everything but the kitchen sink. It was a nursing home, a dance studio, and even a meeting hall for Alcoholics Anonymous before finally being rescued in the 1960's by a local preservation enthusiast named James Strawn, Jr, whose efforts resulted in the house being placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.
And then came the Sugarbaker sisters and that TV show - "Designing Women". They were fictional, of course, and so was their design firm (which was in Atlanta and not Little Rock) - but their "house" was the real deal. Featured in the opening credits and much of the B-roll during the long-running and immensely popular show, it became a beloved Southern icon in its own right.
And somewhere, Angelo and Jennie Marre are now probably toasting each other with bubbling glasses of champagne, thoroughly enjoying a luxurious last laugh. Take that, Little Rock.
Photo of Villa Marre in Little Rock, Arkansas by Beth Yarbrough.