"Bakhead's large house with a history is being sold after years on the market."."

The house at 490 West Paces Ferry Road is enormous, features luxurious finishes, and has been showcased in blockbusters. Its previous owner had a pet lion, it includes 2 million dollars worth of gold leaf, and it is connected to a reality TV star - and that's just a few of the reasons for its fame.

After several years on the market, a two-acre lot with a striking mansion spanning 25,000 square feet has recently been sold. The house, located on a 2.05-acre plot across from Tuxedo Road near the Georgia governor's residence, was purchased for $8.5 million by a local family who already lived nearby. This mega-mansion boasts stunning style.

The advertisement states that the house has a total area of nearly 25,000 square feet, with nine bedrooms, 12 full bathrooms, and six half-bathrooms. It also features 19 fireplaces, a four-car garage, three grilling areas with a hibachi grill and a pizza oven, two master suites, and a grand foyer with a custom staircase. Other features include a backyard pool and spa, a "grand salon," an 18-seat movie theater, an elevator, three wine cellars, a game room and bar, a recording studio, a beauty salon, and much more.

Even more appealing is the eccentric style of the house, which seems inspired by a Mediterranean villa. Amenities include ceilings with 10-carat gold leaf, limestone and Moroccan hardwood floors, as well as furniture from designer firms such as Phyllis Morris from Los Angeles, Maitland-Smith, and others.

The extravagant style of the house is the result of a major renovation carried out by its former owner, Lee Najjar, known as "Big Papa." Najjar, a real estate investor, was portrayed as the "sugar daddy" of Kim Zolciak-Biermann from "The Real Housewives of Atlanta." The house has been featured in films such as "Zombieland" and the 2012 "Three Stooges," as well as on the show "Million Dollar Rooms" on HGTV, according to Yahoo. It was also showcased on MTV Cribs.

The history of the house spans over a century. The original house, covering 7,500 square feet, was built around 1910. In 1914, during the initial construction of the grand estates on West Paces Ferry Road, the Jackson-Alslop-Arnold house, as it was then called, was renovated and expanded by the architectural firm Hentz, Reid and Adler, which was also responsible for designing several other notable homes in the area. The house was later renovated and expanded in 1996 by the then-owner and builder Jack Fowler. The renovations included a Mediterranean style that was incorporated into the current house. It was then named Villa Banderas in honor of Fowler's pet lion cub, nicknamed Banderas.

The house has a tumultuous sales history. Barry Milam, a realtor and custom home builder in Atlanta, has been the listing agent for the house for over five years and actually lived on the property as a caretaker for several years from 2017 to 2022. He stated that the quality of the home's construction is exceptional. "I have been building homes for over 50 years, and the craftsmanship is simply unmatched in Atlanta," Milam said.

In 2009, the house was put up for sale at a stunning price of $25 million, which reportedly was the highest price on the Atlanta market at that time.

The price of the house was reduced to $15.9 million in 2014, but later that same year it rose again to nearly the original price of $25 million, and then quickly fell again. The property documents for the house show a series of unusual transactions, but in 2015, Najjar lost the house due to foreclosure. His lender then sold it for a symbolic price of $1.358 million on the steps of the Fulton County courthouse to a private investor from California, who immediately put it back on the market for $18.8 million. Since then, it has been consistently available for sale.

One aspect of his sales, according to Milam, was a series of last-minute failures during the sales process, at least while he was the selling agent. "He was sold several times," he said. "We sold him to a well-known rapper, we sold him to a California director, we sold him to several people, but each time some issue arose, and he never passed the background check. These were very unusual circumstances."

The house has finally found a new buyer after being put up for sale in September 2022 for $9.98 million, which was later reduced to $8.995 million in March. It was sold on June 30 through a cash offer of $8.5 million. The new owners are already customizing it to their taste and will be moving in soon. It seems the days of drama in the house are behind it.