Airliewood, one of the South’s premier Gothic Revival houses, located in historic Holly Springs, Mississippi will be auctioned this Saturday.
When it was built in 1858 for William Henry Coxe, the twelve acre estate was the finest house in Holly Springs, a town full of extraordinarily fine houses. So grand was the house that it was used by Major General U.S. Grant as his headquarters and residence during the winter of 1862 - 1863.
The current owners completed a comprehensive restoration of the house in 2002 overseen by Mississippi architect Sam Kaye. A new wing containing a kitchen, great room, master suite and garages was added. The project received an Award of Merit for Restoration and Rehabilitation from the Mississippi Heritage Trust.
If you ever should decide to leave the grandeur of your own antebellum mansion, remember that Holly Springs is also home to Graceland Too and Memphis is just 30 minutes up the road.
Above photos: Airliewood photographed for the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1975. Via the Library of Congress.
A massive cast-iron fence manufactured by Wood and Perrot of Boston encircles the property. The gate is identical to the one at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point.
8 comments:
This is an amazing house (and gates!), thank you for posting it. Won't you please post more often? I know that your readers would rejoice if you did. RD
Thank you for your blog!
Inspiering!
//Christopher
Thanks Reggie! New commitments at work have taken up much of my time lately. I'm hoping to post more often now that things are coming together. I always appreciate your kind comments.
It's difficult to tell the scale of the house from the photos. If you look closely, you can see a figure sitting on the bench in front of the windows which gives you an idea of just how tall the windows are.
Christopher - Glad you enjoyed my blog.
Fabulous property and so many wonderful architectural details! Thank you!
xoxo
Karena
Art by Karena
It is true that it is difficult to realize the scale from the photographs, and of course, the contextual setting. But it is a magnificent in-town estate, and still available for a relative pittance.
Thanks for the site posting and thanks for the kind comments from the bloggers! It did not sell at the auction, and is now listed at 20% of the cost we have in it. We hope someone buys it who appreciates the wonderful history as well as the Gothic Architecture! Joe Overstreet, owner.
Great picture of the gates and railing at Airliewood. Unfortunately, there are two errors in the credits. Wood & Perot (Perot has only one "r") was a Philadelphia foundry, not a Boston one. Perot was Wood's partner from 1857-1865.
What a beautiful house. I hope all went well with its sale. It's the kind of home that could make somebody very happy.
I have HABS architectural plans for a similar house, The James D. Roberts House, Carson City, Nevada, available on my home plans website, Historic Home Plans.
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