Elms Court

Constructed c.1836, Elms Court has the appearance of a Mediterranean Villa. The approach to the home is reminiscent of landscaped parks surrounding European country houses. Three hundred years in the making, Elms Court is situated on a 160acre outstanding cultural landscape of natural woods, informal plantings, formal gardens, ponds, and meadows, the main house and four 19th- century outbuildings

Built for Katherine and Eliza Evans, daughters of Lewis Evans, a prominent planter, in the Greek Revival style with four columns supporting a two-story portico over the main entrance. Elms Court is not a plantation home, it is one of the most prominent of the Suburban Villas in the Natchez region. In addition to its architectural interest, it is significant as the residence of Ayers P. Merrill, a locally important merchant, planter and diplomat and his wife Jane who in 1856, inherited the property.

The Merrill’s enlarged and remodeled Elms Court, and the north elevation was transformed from Greek Revival to that of a Romantic villa by the removal of the single-bay portico and wealthy planter, merchant and cotton broker. The Henderson’s were a prominent pioneer family. Thomas Henderson’s father, John, had left his native Scotland in 1770. He owned numerous plantations in the Natchez region, wrote the first book published in the Natchez Territory and helped found the Presbyterian Church in Natchez in 1807.

Magnolia Hall is the last grand Natchez house completed before the American Civil War. In 1853 Thomas Henderson had been elected vice-president of the American Colonization Society, though Thomas’ two sons fought for the Confederacy. During the Civil War, Magnolia Hall was damaged by the

Union gunboat Essex, which bombarded the town from the Mississippi River several blocks west. A shell from the boat struck the service wing of the house. The damage was slight, and no one in the home was injured.

Thomas Henderson died before the war ended and shortly thereafter the house was sold to the Britton family, who occupied it for many years. Fortunately, an inventory of the furnishings of the Henderson family had been made to settle Thomas’ estate, giving future owners an exact idea of what it contained.

Unfortunately, the house became a rooming house and private Episcopal school in later years, and it was during this time all of the original partition walls were removed, all but two of the original mantelpieces were sold, the ceilings were lowered, the original chandeliers were sold and the home became institutional in character. Then in 1976 the house was saved by the deeding it as a gift to the Preservation Society of Ellicott Hill, the preservation arm of the Natchez Garden Club, by Mrs. George Armstrong of Fort Worth, Texas, and Woodstock Plantation in Adams County. cotton crop had been harvested, just two months later, in September the Union Navy provided a gunboat, the Forest Rose, for the Merrill’s to travel to Memphis. installation of a double-tier cast-iron gallery along the entire facade. These notable galleries are possibly the most lavish use of ornamental iron in Mississippi. Added at the same time were symmetrical one-story wings with iron galleries.

During the years following its acquisition, the Natchez Garden Club completed a restoration of the house under the direction of New Orleans architectural firm Koch and Wilson and of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Magnolia Hall is owned and maintained by the Natchez Garden Club, which in the 1930s began a movement to restore, preserve and promote the historic homes of Natchez. The club has acquired many of the original Henderson furnishings and artifacts. The mansion also houses a costumes collection of past Pilgrimage dresses, and a doll collection. gift shop.

Merrill briefly served as the United States Minister (Ambassador) to Belgium under President Ulysses Grant. His heirs owned Elms Court until 1895 when James Surget, a first cousin of Jane Merrill, acquired the property, and Surget’s descendants still live there today.

The interior opens into a broad center passage connecting the north portico and the south (rear) gallery, with separated double parlors on the east from dining room, stair alcove and library opposite. Much of the interior trim, such as the symmetrical architraves with corner blocks and simple wooden columnar mantels, today all remains intact. A splendid recessed centerpiece with papyrus and acanthus ornamentation located in the center passage, and several more common pinwheel centerpieces located elsewhere on the first floor may also date to the original construction of the house. In the 1850s and ’60s, Elms Court had its own methane gas system where they manufactured gas from coal to use for interior lighting. Remarkably the original gasoliers still serve today, though later electrified.

Merrill was a Union sympathizer. Following the fall of Vicksburg in July 1863, Merrill received permission to leave with his family for the North once his

Elms Court tells the rare story of centuries of continuity as a family home. As the needs of the family change, the use of rooms changed. You can see a clear example of this in the dining room as it shows the 1850s remodel in which an existing room and portion of the back gallery were tied together. The center arch from which a large hollow frame wood punkah hangs, unifies the two sections of the room.

The small parlor served as the family schoolroom in the early 20th century and the bedroom was a library until the family converted the billiard room in the east wing to a formal library in the 1950s. Elms Court is an authentic experience through centuries of time.

Brandon Hall sits on 40 acres of by far one the most picturesque landscapes in the entire region, just off the Natchez Trace. With walking paths in the forest, a private cemetery, and great live oaks. This beautiful Greek Revival home, called one of the finest antebellum homes in the south is nestled into a secluded park like setting with rolling hills, native plants, beautiful gardens and a stocked pond.

The land first passed into private ownership as a royal grant from Spanish King Carlos III to Frederick Calvit, an American, in 1788, it was then sold to William Lock Chew, in 1809, who probably built the first structure on the site. The rare early Spanish structure still exists as the basement area of the present Brandon Hall.

In 1833 it was sold to the Hoggart family, and in 1853 deeded to daughter Charlotte and her hus- band Gerard Brandon III, son of an early governor of Mississippi upon her father’s death. Gerard and Charlotte appear to have lived in the Spanish house built by William Chew until they inherited the property when they began construction of Brandon Hall, completing the house in 1856.

The Brandon home sits elevated about four feet above the surrounding ground, which required moving of about 6,000 cubic yards of earth, a tremendous project, practically engulfing the original Chew house, which became a basement floor.

The Brandon family fortunes began to fall after the American Civil War, once one of the wealthi- est families, as a result of being one of the largest slaveholders in the South, their ownership of the grand mansion and its vast acreage ended in 1914 as a result of mortgage default.

From that time until 1983, it passed through nine other owners and fell into great disrepair when the Diefenthal family of New Orleans came to its rescue in 1983 and undertook a major restoration, saving it for future generations to enjoy and learn from its stories. The Diefenthal family later donated the house and property —in excellent condition — to the Historic Natchez Foundation who sold the home and today its present owners are adding to and continuing the high level of care and stewardship this spectacular home and grounds require where they welcome visitors from around the world as a B&B and events venue.

One of the oldest houses in Natchez, Airlie is an important example of an early Planters Home of the late 18th, and early 19th-centuries.

With exceptional architectural integrity, Airlie interprets the early period of the city’s history with its distinctive double-pitched roof of a gable with an attached roof shed over the front gallery, glazed sidelights on either side of the front and rear doorways, and its exposed framing in the ceiling of the galleries, all attest to its early construction and significance.

Built for Stephen and Katharine Minor about 1790, and sold to Colonel John Steele, Secretary of the Mississippi Territory under Gov. Winthrop Sargent twenty years later, it was then acquired in 1832 by the Aylette Buckner family. William Aylett Buckner was an attorney, cotton planter, and cotton commission merchant and the home remained in the family, with Buckner’s descendants for almost 200 years, up until the 1990s.

Natchez has fewer than ten houses to interpret the character of its early architecture. A clue to its early architectural style is found here in the roofline, featuring a broken slope in the gabled roof, making the porch appear to be a shed-roof addition to the house and is a fine example of a late 18th Century vernacular style. Like most early Natchez houses, Airlie is long and low and generously shaded by galleries on the front and rear.

William Bucknero did extensive remodeling to the interior in the

1830s in the popular Greek Revival style of the time. Although Airlie has been added to several times in its early years, these additions have maintained and enhanced the original design and character of the house and few changes have been made to the house since the mid 19th-century. The earliest part of the house appears to have been the two rooms east of the central hallway. The rear room here has what is probably the earliest mantel piece in Adams County.

An elegantly simple and unpretentious house Airlie makes a gracious statement of warmth and hospitality. Today Airlie is located in a picturesque setting and is the home of Terry and Katie Wood Freiberger, who also raise heritage breed chickens. Its present owners continue the tradition of hospitality associated with the house during its long history.

Choctaw Hall is the only mansion-style Natchez house built out to the street. The details of the interior are predominately Greek Revival, the massing of this monumental house is Federal and the giant Roman orders on the exterior, a Jeffersonian reference. This urban mansion transitions from Federal to Greek Revival, and showcases one of the finest collections of William IV and Early American Empire furniture, silver, and signed Jacob Petit Porcelain.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Neibert-Fisk House, it was constructed in 1836 as the residence of the real estate speculator and developer Joseph Neibert.

According to local tradition, Choctaw was designed and built by Natchez builder, James Hardie, a Scottish immigrant. Hardie and his three brothers, Alexander, John and