Robert Warner residence
The Robert Warner residence, also called the Warner-Green house is a large stone house located at 2733 Highland Avenue facing Rhodes Park. It was designed by architect Robert Posey and constructed in 1907 for Robert Warner, who had married one of the "three sisters" who came to live next door to each other with their respective husbands on this stretch of Highland.
The two-story rectangular house is raised on a broad stone terrace. The walls are clad in evenly-coursed bands of chip-face gray limestone. The deep eaves of the hipped roof are interrupted by a deeply-recessed gable with an oval window admitting light to the central stair hall. The entryway features three elliptical arches surmounted by a larger elliptical moulding. An original sunroom protrudes from the left side of the house. Another second-story sunroom was added later on the same side.
The house lies within Birmingham's Highland Park Historic District and the Highland Avenue Historic District which is entered in the National Register of Historic Places.
Until 2001 the house was owned by Ethel Green. It was sold, along with the adjacent George Harris residence to Bobby Keller, who originally intended to restore them as residences and to live in one of them. Keller did not make any visible progress toward restoration and the properties declined under his ownership, with boards covering the doors and windows. The front porch of the Warner residence is now destroyed, and at least one of the large stone chimneys is missing.
In September 2007, just a week before they would have been placed on the Birmingham City Council agenda for condemnation, he hired a roofer to re-roof both houses and told city officials that he was hoping to restore them together as a bed and breakfast, pending neighborhood approval.
In April 2023 Highland Park neighborhood president Elizabeth Sanfelippo organized a petition urging Keller to restore or sell the houses, alluding to a nuisance lawsuit set for trial in September of that year.
References
- Coman, Victoria L. (September 12, 2007) "Highland Park's `sisters' houses may become inns after rescue ." The Birmingham News