LOCATION: Roswell, GA
PRICE: $1,220,000
SIZE: 6 bedrooms, 6 full and 2 half bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It's been an goddamn ice age time since Your Mama has turned our celebrity real estate attentions to the peachy state of Georgia where, thanks to a fine, southern gentleman informant we call Chatty Charlie, we've learned that newly retired and recently divorced professional baseballer Larry "Chipper" Jones dropped $1,220,000 on a big new bachelor pad in the affluent Atlanta suburb of Roswell.
Of course, Your Mama does not know a baseball from a floor tile and had no idea who this optimistically nick-named Chipper person is. So, we did what we always do when tipped off to the real estate activities of a professional baseball player we've never heard of before: We picked up our bedazzled but woefully bedraggled, slim-line princess phone for an early morning consult with our booze-fueled and baseball-crazy b.f.f. Fiona Trambeau up in San Francisco. Not surprisingly, we caught dear ol' Fiona on her Old-School flip phone at about 8:30 am as she chomped on a powdered jelly donut and did the infamous walk of shame up Market Street. We didn't ask but Your Mama would bet both our long-bodied bitches, Linda and Beverly, that Fiona was clad in her usual uniform of a loosely fitted head scarf and a spandex unitard that leaves nothing to the imagination.
Anyhoo, the first thing scandal-obsessed Fiona gleefully told us about Mister Chipper Jones is that back in the late 1990s he got a Hooters waitress preggers while he was still married to his first wife who stood by him publicly before she dumped his extra marital baby making ass. To his credit, he owned up to the ugly business and, by all accounts, supports the child. Mister Jones went on to marry another lady with whom he made three more children and from whom he was recently divorced.
While his personal life has certainly had its tawdry and turbulent twists and turns—and whose hasn't, really?—Mister Chipper Jones's life on the diamond as a switch-hitting third basemen has been the very picture of professional consistency. He played 19 consecutive seasons with the Atlanta Braves, was instrumental in helping the team to nab a World Series win in 1996 and retired this year with 468 home runs and a lifetime batting average just above .300. (Your Mama had no idea if a .300+ lifetime batting average is a good thing or a bad thing but Fiona assured us it is absolutely impressive.)
Until he moved out—we're not really sure when that was—Mister Chipper Jones (et famille) lived luxuriously in a baronial, approximately 14,000 square foot brick-built Roswell mansion with 5 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms on 2.52 landscaped acres in a small, gated enclave. According to Chatty Charlie, second ex-Missus Chipper Jones got the family homestead. Given that a similarly-sized mansion just a few doors down is currently listed at $1,995,000, it would appear that second ex-Missus Chipper Jones may have to hang on to the property for quite some time before she can even think about selling it for anywhere near the $4,330,000 she and her ex mister paid for the place in August 2005. But we digress...
According to Fulton County property records and listing information kindly forwarded by Chatty Charlie, Mister Chipper Jones's new bachelor pad—conveniently just about six miles from his old family house—sits on 3,85 partly wooded and partly landscaped acres, stands two stories at the front and three at the back, measures around 4,538 square feet and contains a total of 5-6 bedrooms and six full and two half bathrooms.
A long driveway cuts through a thick stand of trees that nearly but not quite completely obscures the privately situated and custom-built residence from the road. A circular motor court makes a stately statement in front of the many-gabled and quintessentially American suburban mini-mansion that listing information described as a "European Traditional." We're not sure if that's an actual category recognized by the American Institute of Architects, but there you have it.
Eight foot wood, glass and iron front doors open into a double-height foyer with limestone floors that makes a single half-step down though a trio of shallow arches into a voluminous, semi-formal family room with hardwood floors, a towering vaulted and beamed ceiling, and substantial stone fireplace flanked by built-in bookcases and board game storage cabinets. Inexplicably, the floor takes another half-step up to a raised section of the room in front of a monumentally-scaled arched window.
Somewhere there's a formal dining room that seats 12 or more, according to listing information, and the semi-formal family room opens directly into the newly renovated, faux-rustic-style center island kitchen complete with rough-hewn wood beams across the ceiling, heavily ornamented glazed and stained cabinetry, slab stone counter tops and top grade appliances that include a 48-inch integrated Sub-Zero and 48-inch commercial-style cook top with griddle. A peninsula snack bar separates the kitchen from the breakfast area with vaulted cypress wood ceiling.
The service areas off the kitchen include a walk-in pantry and a laundry/mud room with built-in housekeeping desk, laundry sink, half pooper and direct access to the attached three-car garage. A fourth garage bay is accessible from the lower level living area. Both the kitchen area and semi-formal family room open to a deep covered dining and lounging porch with a sweeping view over the tree-ringed backyard.
The main floor master suite, according to listing information, offers his and her closets and a roomy restroom outfitted in high-suburban style with high-gloss raised panel taupe cabinetry, speckled granite counter tops, double sinks and a separate a built-in make-up vanity, a glass-doored stall shower and separate spa tub set into a platform between a pair of decorative columns intended—Your Mama imagines—to give the bathroom an element of architectural grandeur. Four bedrooms on the second floor—one for each of his children—each have their own bathroom and share a central den/office/homework lounge.
Down in the daylight basement—listing information calls it the "terrace level"—there are unusually high 10- and 12-foot ceilings, a full bathroom with steam shower, an exercise room with mirrored wall, a fully paneled office—or sixth bedroom—with built-in cabinetry and stained glass details and a a gift wrapping room hidden behind a moving bookcase. There's also a game room with tray ceiling and full bar complete with built-in dishwasher and ice maker and an adjoining media lounge with coffered beam ceiling and built-in entertainment center set into a trio of arched in a brick-faced accent.
Various room on the lower level entertainment spill out to a deep covered and ceramic tiled terrace with built in bar area that overlooks the landscaped backyard with rolling lawns, flagstone pathways, free-form swimming pool and elevated sunken spa.
Other notable features of Mister Chipper Jone's new digs include a driveway alarm that alerts those in the house when a car makes its way down the long driveway, a complete irrigation system outside, central vacuum and surround sound systems inside, high-tech security and pre-wiring for an intercom system that would allow inhabitants and guests the ability to communicate with (and listen in on) other inhabitants and guests located in distant parts of the house.
Your Mama isn't sure what Mister Chipper Jones's post-retirement plans may be but they might involve a whole lotta cook-outs with the year's supply of sausage given to him by the Milwaukee Brewers as a retirement gift. Now children—we have to ask—how much, exactly, is a year's supply of sausage?
listing photos: Atlanta Realty Group
