Isaac Schiffman Building

Constructed by an unknown architect some time around 1845, this structure was dramatically transformed in 1895 from a Federal style antebellum brick building into the Richardsonian Romanesque masterpiece that still graces the corner of East Side Square today.

The rebuild was underwritten by the Southern Savings and Loan Association, who also added lavish touches to the building’s interior, including pressed tin ceilings, carved cherry wood and oak features, mission-style chandeliers, corner fireplaces, and walk in vaults.

Shortly after the renovation, Huntsville city attorney William B. Bankhead rented an office in the building, and an upstairs apartment where he lived with his wife, Ada Eugenia Bankhead. Their daughters Eugenia and Tallulah were born in 1901 and 1902.

Over time, William B. Bankhead rose through the ranks of politics to become the U.S. Speaker of the House and Tallulah achieved international fame as an actress on radio, film, television, and live theatre.

She appeared in several silent films before moving to London in the 1920s and making a name for herself as a stage actress. In the 1930s, she returned to the U.S. and starred in leading roles in six films for Paramount.

Known for her sultry voice and prodigious cigarette smoking - upwards of 120 a day - she collected over 300 film credits before her death in 1966.

While Tallulah Bankhead was the most famous resident of this building, it bears the name of the investor, Isaac Schiffman, who bought the building from Southern Savings and Loan in 1905. After his death in 1910, the building passed through his family with current ownership resting with his son’s brother-in-law’s granddaughter, Margaret Anne Goldsmith.

Through modernization in 1997 adhering to strict historic tax credit standards, she has set the building up to retain its reign as the most well-maintained pre-Civil War building in Huntsville for another 150 years.