Longwood: A Southern Mansion With a Unique Style

Larger than life: Architecture through the ages

Longwood’s exterior stands out for Italianate-style double and triple veranda columns, overhanging bracketed cornices, a multi-arch-window cupola topped with a Moorish onion-style dome, and a slender minaret tower. Library of Congress. (Public Domain)

American homes prior to the Civil War (1861–65) were predominantly characterized by Georgian, Neoclassical, and Greek Revival styles—not so for a Natchez, Mississippi-area mansion called Longwood. While it does display some of the era’s popular architectural styles, distinctiveness is apparent in the mansion’s interior and exterior design elements.

Longwood’s looming presence among oaks dripping with Spanish moss is primarily noteworthy for being America’s largest existing octagonal-style residential structure, with its remarkable eight-sided floorplan and centerpiece cupola and dome. Although Natchez boasts several ornately decorated dwellings, Longwood stands out with its Oriental Revival style that combines both Italianate and Moorish characteristics.

According to curators at the Historic Natchez Foundation, Italianate aspects are particularly evident in the arched openings, and sawn millwork, including balustrades, brackets, arcaded frontispieces (decorative façade), spandrels (triangular shapes in the curve of an arch), and crestings (an ornamental ridge at the top of a wall). The onion-shaped dome and tall minaret are distinctly Moorish in design.

While it seems that Philadelphia architect Samuel Sloan’s 1859 project was seemingly a hodgepodge of ideas, Longwood illustrates an exotic and eclectic phase of architectural romanticism that flourished from the early- to mid-19th century.

On one of the mansion’s four symmetrical two-story verandas, each facing different directions, are tri-column corners featuring classic Corinthian scroll and leaf design. These fluted columns on pedestals represent only three of the numerous columns on the home’s exterior, and they provide not only support but ornamentation. (Courtesy of Pilgrimage Garden Club)

Of the 32 rooms originally planned for the mansion, only nine rooms on the first floor were completed. The mansion’s construction was interrupted and then halted because of the Civil War. With four large openings or entrances, Longwood was designed to maximize cross-ventilation airflow during sweltering Mississippi summers. Hot air rises into the vast six-story space that ends in the dramatic cupola and dome. (Courtesy of Pilgrimage Garden Club)

The inner workings of Longwood’s intricate cupola and onion-shaped dome, and its six levels of planned living space, are clearly visible when one stands in the center point of the mansion’s ground floor. The handmade brickwork discernable in its eight interior symmetrical arches confirms the extraordinary octagonal architectural design. (Courtesy of Pilgrimage Garden Club)

A portrait in a lavish, gilded frame of the mansion’s original matron, Julia Nutt, is the focal point of Longwood’s master bedroom. Atop the mahogany veneered Empire-style dresser owned by the Nutt family, is an intricately inlaid Japanese curio box. Small photographs are of Longwood’s original owner, Haller Nutt, who died in 1864, before the Civil War ended, and of Julia Nutt in her mourning attire. (Courtesy of Pilgrimage Garden Club)

Central in the dining room is the functional punkah over the formal dining table. The large, decorative wooden fan suspended from the ceiling could be moved backward and forward by pulling on a cord. The punkah was inspired by fans made of cloth that were once commonplace in India. The dining room’s exterior double-door and tall windows also allowed for additional air flow during an era when air conditioning didn't exist. (Courtesy of Pilgrimage Garden Club)

The 1840s Rococo Revival-style secretary in the mansion’s front parlor is original to the Nutt family, who had the residence built. Made of mahogany with a rosewood finish, the two-part roll-top desk has storage at the base and a glass-door bookshelf at the top. The Rococo Revival style is especially apparent in the sculpted wood moldings framing the glass doors at the top and the wooden doors below the desk. (Courtesy of Pilgrimage Garden Club)

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