Mansion goes on block

Snavely residence compared to those
of Hollywood stars

Jack and Catherine Snavely's house on North Front Street in Harrisburg is so magnificent that people call it the "Movie Star Mansion."

Towering cathedral windows climb up the white stucco facade of the Spanish Mission-style house. The roof is made of red tile. A fountain decorated with cherubs gurgles in the foyer, and the twisting staircase beneath the vaulted ceiling of the spacious salon seems the perfect entrance for Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard."

Hidden behind junipers, sycamores and weeping willows, the house seems secluded enough from the rush of traffic on busy Front Street to please a rich recluse. It looks like the kind of posh estate you'd find in the ritzy hills of Hollywood, not on the banks of the Susquehanna River.

The Snavelys will let you in on a secret: Only one move star ever crossed the doorstep of the Movie Star Mansion since it was built almost 70 years ago. Still, the house, with its shiny terrazzo floors, its marble window sills, its four bathrooms and its extravagant fish pond in the courtyard has impressed the many guests at the jazz parties the Snavelys have hosted there.

But after almost 30 years, the Snavelys are moving out. They're leaving the 14-room house in the 2900 block of Front Street for a condominium in Susquehanna Twp. The Movie Star Mansion will be auctioned to the highest bidder at noon Oct. 14 in the two car garage just off the courtyard.

A wealthy banker built the house for $125,000 in 1926, a handsome sum in the Roaring '20s. It took two years to complete.

The Movie Star Mansion joined a number of large, splendid homes in many different styles - Tudor, Colonial - that formed an eclectic row along the Susquehanna's bank in Harrisburg. Many of those homes have been rennovated into office buildings.

The mansion hosted one movie star: Dexter Gordon, a jazz saxophonist who was nominated for an Oscar for his performance in the 1986 film "Round Midnight." Visiting the Snavelys after an appearance in Harrisburg, Gordon was so enamored with the house that he didn't leave until 4 the following morning.

When Catherine Snavely first saw the house, she fell in love with it. The salon was perfect for parties, and each window presented a view of the river. The sunsets are breathtaking, she said.

"Oh, is this like Hollywood," she told a friend who accompanied her on a house-hunting tour that day.

"We came from four rooms to this," she said, seated in the salon. "Anything that you go to from here is a come-down."

Ray Hartman's mother bought the house in 1955. A retired opera singer, his mother, Helene Dale, spent a large sum of money on the mansion, hoping to turn it into a recital hall for her private students.

But a flood damaged the new furnace she had installed in the basement. Discouraged, she sold the mansion in 1963, never having turned the house into a music hall, according to Hartman.

"I think, to a certain extent, that led to her death," said Hartman, who now lives in West Palm Beach, Fla. "She had such hope for that house."

The Snavelys are auctioning the house because they can't figure out the market value of such a house to sell it through a Realtor, said William Hobbie, the auctioneer who will try to sell the mansion. Hobbie also will sell some of the Snavely's possessions and antiques from another estate in the auction beginning at 10am.

"You get inside and you're in your own little caste - how can you put a price on this house?" Hobbie said. "It's reserved and elegant. Some might call it showy, but it's not garish. It exudes old money."

The auction could mark an end of an era: The mansion could be turned into an office building, like so many of the grand old houses in the row, by its next owner. Only five families have lived in the house.

"That would be a shame," Hartman said.

"I hope somebody preserves it. I hope they don't turn it into a real estate office, or some other office," he said. "I was always enthralled with that house. It is fascinating."