Birmingham Blues

This is a really nice story. I didn’t grow up in Birmingham, but I’ve listened to older members of our church talk about Norwood when it was one of the best neighborhoods in town. One elderly lady told me about riding the streetcar to our downtown church on Sunday evenings — it was the social event of the week.

Norwood fell on hard times for a few decades, but now it’s making a comeback. Citizens and businesses can get a lot of property for their money and live close to downtown.

Sonia Tutuwan wasn’t long out of cosmetology school when she decided to open her own hair salon in Birmingham four years ago. Because she specialized in African-American styles, she wanted to be in a black neighborhood and had chosen a building near Midfield.

She put down earnest money and prepared to move. But then she got a call from someone who had heard she needed space for a business and offered to lease her a floor in an old Norwood house.

“I really didn’t want to go, but I thought, why not? It couldn’t hurt anything just to look,” Tutuwan recalls. “So I drove over here, and when I pulled up outside, I was like, ‘OK, where do I sign?’”

Instead of leasing space, Tutuwan talked the owner — who ran a mortgage company there — into selling her the 14-room, Greek Revival-style mansion. In the early 1900s, the home was the family estate of J.R. Copeland, president of the old Copeland-Inglis Shale Brick Co.

She got a good deal, paying $160,000 for a house that could have run into the millions in some other parts of town.

Her timing couldn’t have been better. In the last 18 months, others have discovered the beauty of stately old Norwood, lined with sidewalks and ancient oaks, just northeast of downtown. White gay men, young black couples and, lately, single women of all races have been buying the old bungalows and two-story family homes to fix up and live in.

…Unlike a few of the Johnny-come-latelies, who aim to buy and flip the houses for profit, Tutuwan bought hers because she loved it at first sight. She plans to keep it and, maybe 10 years down the road, turn the second floor into a bed and breakfast.

Lately, Tutuwan has been going to community meetings to learn about neighborhood projects, including a planned greenway and ongoing improvements by McWane Corp., whose McWane Cast Iron & Pipe Co. is on the neighborhood’s western edge.

Born and raised in Cameroon, West Africa, Tutuwan came to Birmingham, where she has cousins, to study nursing 12 years ago. At Bevill State Community College, she earned her certification as a licensed practical nurse and found work in St. Vincent’s Hospital and area nursing homes.

To support herself through school, Tutuwan did hair for friends and friends of friends. She realized it was her calling and went back to Bevill State to study cosmetology.

Today, women from across the city go to Tutuwan’s Changes for the latest styles, such as locks and microweaves, and also for manicures, pedicures and a variety of spa services.

…With nine stylists and manicurists, and a masseuse on call, Tutuwan has managed to fill nearly every room in the old mansion. Stylists work in three first-floor rooms, and other areas are for hair-washing, massages, hot-tub soakings and manicures. Tutuwan uses one room as a dressing area for fashion shows she sometimes gives.

She also has total strangers showing up on her doorstep asking to see the house. She says she gives tours if she isn’t too busy. I may just head over there myself. Stories like this make me happy.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 28th, 2006 at 10:36 am and is filed under Miscellaneous Cool Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.