Homewood Plantation (Natchez, Mississippi)

The name "Balfour" on this map - just above and to the right of the city of Natchez - is where Homewood is located.

Homewood was located north of the Natchez, Mississippi city limits on Pine Ridge Road.[2]

Homewood, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1938. All bricks were made on premises. Had a mahogany fanspread stairway

Homewood was the antebellum plantation home of William S. Balfour and his wife, Catherine Hunt.[3] It adjoined Catherine's sister Charlotte's Lansdowne Plantation.[3] The 600 acre Homewood Plantation was a wedding gift to William and Catherine from Catherine's millionaire, planter father David Hunt.[4] William S. Balfour's father, William L. Balfour of Madison County, Mississippi, was one of the richest Mississippi antebellum planters.[4] He was a founder of the Mississippi College at Clinton.[4] James Buchanan had picked him to run as his vice-president in the 1857 presidential election; however, he died before the election.[2]

William and Catherine's mansion on Homewood Plantation was the suburban Natchez equal of nearby Stanton Hall, which was in the town of Natchez.[5] The mansion, designed by Scottish architect James Hardie, took the five years from 1855 to 1860 to build.[6][7] While it was being built, William and Catherine lived on his Issaquena County, Mississippi Plantation.[4] This 1,400 acre plantation was known as Fairland and was near the Hunt family's Issaquena County plantations.[8] William had 177 slaves in Issaquena County in 1860.[9] The Balfours moved to Homewood in 1860 with their six children.[3] During the American Civil War of 1861-1865, William served in the Confederate States Army as a Major, and Catherine left by carriage with her children for about one year, moving from place to place.[3] The family returned after the war to find that Homewood was intact.[3] Without the slave labor from before the war, the Balfour's wealth began to decline.[3] Generally, Catherine and her siblings used Cincinnati, Ohio real estate, inherited from her father David, mortgages on their plantations, and whatever else they had to support themselves after the war.[3]

The Balfours sold Homewood to Mr. and Mrs. William J. Kaiser of Natchez in 1907.[2][7] The Kaisers ran a dairy farm on the plantation.[2] Some scenes from the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation were made on the grounds and porches of Homewood.[6] Beginning in 1932 Homewood became well known, because it was on the annual Natchez Pilgrimage houses tour.[2]

When their children were grown, the Kaisers sold the mansion and 73 acres in 1937 to Mr. and Mrs. Swan of New York, who had visited Homewood on a Pilgrimage tour, for $35,000.[2][10] Mrs. Swan caused a lot of talk in Natchez.[2] She and her husband, who was much younger, spent huge sums modernizing the mansion and expanding the gardens during the last years of the Great Depression.[2] Their dogs slept on Beautyrest mattresses.[2] The mansion caught fire in 1940.[2] As it was burning to the ground, Mrs. Swan, with a bottle of whiskey in her hand, slowed the firemen's efforts by ordering them off the property.[10] People speculated that the Swans intentionally burned the mansion.[10] The Swans, however, collected $43,000 in damages from five insurance companies as a result of the fire and returned to live in New York.[10] The old antebellum kitchen dependency building, which survived the fire, has been remodeled for use as a residence.[10] The plantation was later sold to William D. Meriwether, Sarah J. Meriwether, and their children. The old carriage house, which also survived the fire, has been a residence and a clubhouse for the Natchez Country Club.[10]

Floor Plan of the First Floor of Homewood Mansion

The Homewood mansion was about 72 by 96 feet.[2] It had five floors.[7] The basement had several rooms with fireplaces.[4] The first floor had six rooms.[2] The first floor rooms were divided by a center hall and a cross hall that ran just behind the two front rooms.[7] The library, front portion of the center hall, and the parlor could be combined into a 72 foot long ballroom, when the large solid mahogany pocket doors connecting them were opened, that stretched across the front of the house.[2][6] The second floor had a similar floor plan to the first floor.[2] The attic floor had a large center room surrounded by eight small storage rooms.[2][7] From the cupola and the adjoining widow's walk on top of the mansion, the town of Natchez could be seen in the distance.[2]

The mansion had two and one-half foot thick brick walls and thirty-five foot high, metal front porch columns with Ionic capitals.[3] The sidelight windows beside the front door had imported pink glass from Belgium.[11] Both sides of the mansion had two-story porches with metal lace-work railings.[3] The imported Cordovan marble fireplace mantles varied in color.[3][6] The library mantle was pink and grey.[11] The drawing room mantle was white.[11] The dining room mantle was pink with oxblood.[11] Each of the eight bedrooms had different shadings.[3] The interior doors were made of three inch thick mahogany.[11] A curved stairway with fan shaped steps and a black walnut railing was in the rear of the central hall and connected the first, second and attic floors.[11] A spiral staircase rose from the large center room of the attic to the cupola on top.[7]

A two-story kitchen flanked a rear corner of the mansion.[2] The grounds also contained a two-story carriage house made of brick.[2]

• 
  First Floor Center Hall of Homewood Mansion (1936)
• 
  Rooms Across the Front of Homewood Mansion on the First Floor (1936)
• 
  Spiral Stairway (attic to cupola) in Homewood Mansion (1936)
• 
  Rear of Homewood Mansion (1936)

• / You Tube video with photos of Homewood
• Map of Natchez at Mississippi Department of Archives and History website shows Homewood Plantation at the top
• American Memory from the Library of Congress website in the Architecture topic has 18 images of Homewood mansion - some of which are floor plans
• Map showing the Balfour family's Issaquena County, Mississippi Plantation in the approximate center

31.576563°N 91.370270°W / 31.576563; -91.370270