The colorful Samuel B. Kirby House at 1221 Louisiana St., a piece of Little Rock’s history since 1887, will be auctioned at the Pulaski County Courthouse at noon on Thursday.
Citizens Bank of Batesville foreclosed late last year on the carefully restored Victorian home after three loans secured by the property fell into arrears amid financial disputes following the death of longtime owner Tony Curtis.
“The positive side is hopefully it will have a new owner that loves and appreciates it,” said real estate agent Ryan Stephens, who listed the house in the summer of 2023, a few months after Curtis died.
According to Citizens Bank’s attorney, Bruce Tidwell of the Friday Eldredge & Clark firm in Little Rock, the bank will likely bid the amount it is owed — approximately $125,000. But, he said, the bank hopes for a higher bidder who will make the bank whole, take possession of the historic home and leave a balance for the current owner — whoever that is.
Title to the house has been muddled since Curtis died of brain cancer at age 57 on Jan. 14, 2023. He did not have a will. According to Pulaski County real estate records, ownership was transferred to the Tony Randall Curtis Trust less than three weeks before Curtis’ death.
Citizens Bank made a $25,000 loan to Curtis, secured by the house, about a week before the deed was transferred to the trust, and the Tony Randall Curtis Trust borrowed an additional $25,000 in March 2023 and then $50,000 in May 2023.
The trustee of the Curtis Trust is James F. Leveritt III, a friend who cared for Curtis during his final illness.
One of Curtis’ surviving sisters, Gwendolyn Gaston of Mansfield, Texas, was named administrator of the estate in June 2023. She sued Leveritt in Pulaski County Circuit Court, claiming he improperly set up the trust and improperly encumbered the house with debt. She has asked that the court declare that the trust does not exist.
Leveritt responded by suing Gaston for slander. According to his lawsuit, Gaston’s litigation clouded title to the house and prevented it from being sold to unnamed prospective buyers who made an offer of $550,000. Stephens had listed the property for $665,000, and he told Arkansas Business that a sales contract fell apart because of the “family drama.”
Leveritt also dropped another complication into the mix: According to his lawsuit, Curtis has a surviving son — unnamed in his complaint and absent from Curtis’ obituary — who should be the sole heir of the estate. Gaston denied knowing of any nephew.
The litigation will continue after Thursday’s auction, Leveritt’s attorney, Drake Mann of Gill Ragon Owen, told Arkansas Business. But the foreclosure sale will allow the next owner to have a clear title, Tidwell said. Neither Gaston nor another surviving sister responded to Citizens Bank’s foreclosure complaint, and the Curtis Trust acknowledged the loans and the bank’s right to foreclose. Gaston’s attorney, S.L. Smith of The Firm PLLC in North Little Rock, said he wasn’t sure his client would agree that the foreclosure would clear up the title, but he declined to say more on Tuesday afternoon.
Circuit Judge Cara Connors is presiding over the foreclosure suit and both lawsuits between Gaston and Leveritt. She issued a judgment in favor of the bank on Feb. 2, clearing all other title claims and ordering that any excess from the sale be held by the court “pursuant to other orders.”
The high bidder must pay 10% of the purchase price and then has three months to complete the purchase.
The Kirby House and Tony Curtis’ decades of attention to restoring its glory was the subject of a feature story in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2021. Arkansans Laine and Kevin Berry featured the house on their YouTube channel, Our Restoration Nation, when it was listed for sale in 2023. They reworked the video for another episode in advance of the auction.
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