April 13th - Longwood and Natchez

We got up really early and drove down Highway 61 to Natchez. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that Sunday in Natchez is not like Sunday in most of the places we have been to!! Natchez was closed!!! We drove around the city and decided to tour Longwood, because it seemed like the most interesting of the mansions. Imagine a HUGE palace of a place..... unfinished for over 100 years!

Highway 61 drove though some of the little towns along the way. This was called "Church Street" and for good reason.... we must have passed at least 6 churches on the street!
The entry road to Longwood. I'm sure glad we were in the Miata and not the motor home.
The grounds at the front of the mansion.
The front of the mansion.
The back of the mansion with the children's play area.
The most interesting part of this mansion is in the upper floors-they are unfinished and will always remain that way as the house is now a National Historic Landmark and cannot be changed!
Longwood is the largest octagonal house in America. It is a superb example of the mid-nineteenth century "Oriental Villa" style. The mansion was designed in 1859 and begun in 1860 for wealthy cotton planter Haller Nutt and his wife Julia by Philadelphia architect Samuel Sloan. A great octagonal rotunda is open to the entire six stories, and crowning the whole is a Byzantine-Moorish dome with a 24 foot finial. (The finial was reconstructed in 1993 using the original molds from 1860, as woodpeckers had almost destroyed the original.) Work progressed at a rapid pace until April, 1861.When word of the start of the Civil war was received by the Philadelphia craftsmen employed by Sloan, they dropped their tools and fled North. The house was left in it's unfinished state. The tools and equipment left behind are still on display in the mansion.
With local workers, Haller Nutt completed the basement level as living quarters for his family. He died in 1864, but Julia and their eight children lived on in the basement until her death in 1897. Many of the family's original furnishings are on display in the house. Longwood is maintained in it's unfinished state by the Pilgrimage Garden Club as a poignant reminder of past glories and tragedies.
The basement of the house is actually at ground level. At the back of the house, you walk directly into the basement level. From outside, at the front of the house, you cannot see the basement because it appears to be below ground level. There is a brick retaining wall surrounding the house with a small courtyard between the house and the wall. Each room in the basement has at least one exterior door heading out to the courtyard or to the back yard of the house.
No site epitomizes more the rapid rise in wealth that one could attain in the pre-Civil War era, nor the rapid rate of decline in wealth in the post-bellum era. The mansion has six-stories and contains 30,000 square feet. The upper five stories are an architectural wonder - a magnificent work in progress where time just stopped and stayed.
What would have been the floor plan for the second floor.
Some of the tools left behind by the workers.
Some of the molds used for the fancy moldings on the mansion.
Unfinished stairwell to the second floor.
A truly amazing place, and one of the most interesting mansions we have ever toured. It's unfinished state is so poignant. By the quality of the furnishings still left in the mansion, it is apparent that had the Civil War not occurred, this would have been one of the finest homes in America. I have lots more photos of these for you to look at when we get home. Gpa and I were truly intrigued by this place.

Some more mansions in Natchez. We didn't go inside these.


The Isle of Capri riverboat casino. It's closed because of the flooding of the Mississippi.
Gpa at the flooding.
Water, water everywhere!!!!