| One of few remaining antebellum houses of mansion scale in the Delta and one of the best Mississippi examples of the Italian villa style, this is a large, asymmetrical rural Italianate villa similar to "Ammadelle." Its design was based on a published design by Calvert Vaux (sometimes mistakenly attributed to Samuel Sloan). Built for Margaret Johnson Erwin Dudley, daughter of Henry Johnson, one of the largest early landholders in the Delta. Later owned by William Hezekiah Foote and Huger Lew Foote, prominent planters and politicians. It was listed on the National Register on 14 August 1973. This house was gutted by a fire in June 2015. It is included in "Historic Architecture of Mississippi" (1973) (pp. 184-185), "Old Homes of Mississippi, Volume II: Columbus and the North" (1977) (p. 148), "The Majesty of the Mississippi Delta" (2002) (p.47), and "Great Houses of Mississippi" (2004) (pp.97-99). [HABS: MS-146 (1936), as the Erwin House] |