Gone with the Wind Mansion Goes on the Block

The Georgia mansion Margaret Mitchell told David Selznick was the living embodiment of Ashley Wilkes’ plantation home when she wrote Gone With the Wind recently sold at auction.

Twelve Oaks is 10,000 square feet with 12 bedrooms, 13 bathrooms and a dozen fireplaces. Just the sort of place one would imagine Scarlett O’Hara swanning around in in Mitchell’s enduring 1936 classic Gone With the Wind. From Top Ten Real Estate Deals:

When Selznick International Pictures purchased the film rights to the book in 1939, Mitchell had no interest in being involved in the production except for doing one thing: She

 came across a photograph of an 1836 plantation-style house in the Atlanta Journal, cut it out and mailed it to David Selznick with notations that it was identical to the house that she envisioned for the book’s character Ashley Wilkes.

Since then, Twelve Oaks was purchased by the current owners in rundown condition and underwent a $2 million restoration in 2017 bringing it back to the fine Antebellum home Margaret saw in 1939. With the owners desiring to start a new project, Twelve Oaks has recently been put up for auction ending July 25th with a starting bid of $1 million.

The full piece is here.