Victorian mansion-turned-B&B thrives in safe hands

If you’ve ever wandered by Highland Avenue in the historic Five Points South area, you might have noticed a certain carousel-looking centaur — not the horse many people confuse it for — staring back at you from the width of a large, Victorian-styled window. 

Retired architect Sheila Chaffin, now the third owner of the house and first innkeeper of the Hassinger Daniels Mansion Bed and Breakfast, said this mythological creature, which her husband, Ira, sculpted several years ago, tends to be a favorite among guests and spectators.

It also happened to be a favorite of the second mansion co-owner, Venoa Daniels, who owned the mansion since 1946 with her husband. Daniels met Sheila and Ira Chaffin after noticing some of the sculptures in the window of their first bed and breakfast, which is also in Five Points South. Ira Chaffin eventually offered Daniels a tour of the mansion. 

When the Chaffins moved to Birmingham in 1998, they both noticed her mansion in the Historic Five Points South area, but it wasn’t until a last-minute outreach in 2010 that they got the chance to tour it, or even dream about putting in an offer for it. 

After Daniels moved to a nursing home and got wind that there was a chance another family would put a bid in for the house to eventually tear it down and rebuild, she made sure her choice of buyers — Sheila and Ira — didn’t have the same plan.

Sheila Chaffin still recalls exactly what the second owner of the Victorian home whispered to her, right before they signed the hefty stack of papers to buy the house.

“‘You’re an angel,’ she said, and when I asked her why, she asked me to take care of the house,” Sheila Chaffin said. “Then she told me, ‘Ms. Hassinger [the original owner] said to me, I’m asking you to take care of my house for as long as you can.’” 

Located at 2028 Highland Ave S., right behind the Chick-fil-A, Sheila Chaffin soon after opened the Hassinger Daniels Mansion as her second bed and breakfast — the first being Cobb Lane Bed and Breakfast on 19th Avenue — in late 2015. It took Sheila Chaffin and her husband more than four years to restore the mansion, add some modern amenities and carefully harmonize it with the architectural and stylistic effects of its original time period: 1898.  

Now the bed and breakfast offers 10 different rooms and houses locals, newlyweds and visitors from all over the U.S. Sheila Chaffin said she loved using her architectural background during restoration. She decorated the house herself, adding fancy Victorian elements, iconic columns, gargoyles and angelic statues, dollhouses, old-fashioned bathtubs and even an aged staircase that a local Birmingham friend interested in architecture saved in his garage for 45 years.  

Sheila Chaffin is currently in the process of making a website for the Hassinger Daniels Mansion Bed and Breakfast. She hopes more people in Birmingham, as well as travelers passing through, will try staying a night or two. Until then, she plans to keep honoring Daniels request for safekeeping. 

“This is the [mansion] that I will own until I die, and before I die, I’ll make sure to arrange for the new owner, for safekeeping,” she said. 

The rooms at the bed and breakfast range from $99-$159 a night, depending on the size and number of beds. The Chaffins also offers tours. Call 918-9090 or go to cobblanebandb.com to check availability.