Hollywood star Kim Basinger once made an extraordinary real-estate investment in her home state of Georgia. In 1989, the actress led an investment group that paid a reported $20 million for roughly 1,800 acres in and around the small town of Braselton, northeast of Atlanta. Her ambitious plan was to transform the historic community into a tourist and entertainment destination featuring movie and recording studios, boutiques and a film festival. The project, however, never came to fruition, and Basinger eventually sold the investment for a reported $1 million in 1993.
Basinger had a personal connection to the Georgia town
Braselton was not a random choice for Basinger. The actress was a Georgia native who grew up in nearby Athens, making the community a familiar part of the area where she was raised.At the time of the purchase, Braselton was a small community with around 500 residents. The town had been established in the 19th century by the Braselton family, and members of the family had retained extensive ownership and involvement in the community for generations.The Braselton family had reportedly been trying to sell its holdings since the early 1980s. According to a 1989 UPI report, the family ultimately agreed to Basinger’s proposal after 18 months of negotiations.Although the story is often simplified to say that Basinger “bought a town,” the transaction was actually a purchase of a substantial portion of Braselton’s real estate and commercial holdings.Contemporary reports gave slightly different acreage figures. A study reported that the deal included the town’s supermarket, bank, stores, a 600-acre industrial park and another 1,200 acres of real estate. The Los Angeles Times described the acquisition as approximately 1,800 acres and said it included the water and sewer system, an industrial park, several businesses and about 50 homes and other buildings.The deal therefore did not mean Basinger literally owned every property in the municipality or controlled its local government. Instead, she and her investment partners acquired a large portion of the town’s property and commercial assets.The idea attracted significant attention because it combined Basinger’s Hollywood career with a very unusual hometown investment.
The $20 million deal involved an investment group
Another detail that is frequently lost in retellings is that Basinger did not act entirely alone.By February 1990, the Los Angeles Times reported that American Information Technologies, or Ameritech, had joined Basinger in the investment and helped pay the $20 million price tag. The precise terms of their partnership were not publicly disclosed.The same report said the investment covered approximately 1,700 acres and included a bank, an industrial park, around 50 other buildings and frontage along Interstate 85. A movie studio was among the tentative development ideas.That distinction matters because the popular version of the story that Basinger simply spent $20 million of her own money to purchase an entire town doesn’t fully reflect the documented structure of the transaction.
The ambitious development never materialized
The proposed transformation of Braselton did not happen as Basinger had imagined.Her financial difficulties were unfolding alongside a major legal battle over the film Boxing Helena. Basinger had withdrawn from the project, leading to a lawsuit by Main Line Pictures. A jury initially awarded the company more than $8 million in damages, a judgment that contributed to Basinger’s bankruptcy proceedings before an appellate court later overturned the award because of problems with the jury instructions.The financial pressure surrounding Basinger’s bankruptcy also affected assets connected to the Braselton investment. A report described the partnership as having taken on significant debt for the 1989 acquisition and said Basinger had planned to develop the property with film and recording facilities.
From a Hollywood project to a piece of Georgia history
Basinger’s Braselton venture ultimately became a short-lived chapter in the community’s much longer history.The town itself continued developing after her departure. Braselton eventually expanded beyond its earlier boundaries and attracted major businesses and residential development. Today, the community is substantially larger than the small Georgia town Basinger encountered in 1989.The entertainment destination Basinger envisioned never came to life, but her unusual investment remains one of the most memorable episodes in Braselton’s modern history.What began in 1989 as a $20 million attempt to turn roughly 1,800 acres of a small Georgia community into a tourism and entertainment destination ended just four years later with the investment being sold for a reported $1 million. The episode remains a striking example of how dramatically a celebrity-backed real-estate venture can change course.
