Location Information
(for the Charnley-Norwood House)
Name:Charnley-Norwood House
Address:509 Shearwater Drive (E. Beach)
City/County:Ocean Springs, Jackson County
Architectural Information
Construction Date:c.1890
No. of Stories:1
Registration Information
NR District Name:Sullivan-Charnley (1987)
    NR Status:Contributing
    Element No.:2
Mississippi Landmark Information
Designated:05-08-2008
Recorded:02-28-2011
Book/Vol. No.:1634: 664-666
Easement Information
Date Signed:08-14-2007
Easement Type:Preservation/Maintenance
Book/Vol. No.:Book 2007 Pg. 27670
Context/Comments
The Charnley-Norwood House was included as element #2 of the Sullivan-Charnley Historic District, which was placed on the National Register on 20 April 1987. The house was designated a Mississippi Landmark on 8 May 2008.

The building is included in in "Historic Architecture in Mississippi" (1973) (pp. 96-99) and "Buildings of Mississippi" (2020) (pp.357-358, GC40).
Brief Description
One-story, frame, three-bay-wide (ddd-dddd-ddd), Shingle style house with multi-hipped roof. The full-width, inset porch with picketed railing is supported by shingle-clad columns. Bays 1 and 3 are ribbon, wood 1/1/1 doors. Bay 2 is a 1/1/1 paired door flanked by 1/1/1 doors and round columns. Windows are wood, 1/1/1 casement, single and ribbon, 1-light awning or fixed; some with diamond leaded glass. There are hipped roof wings on the right and left with corner protruding, cutaway bays. The house has a pier foundation, shingle-cladding, and an asphalt shingle roof. Details include: brick chimneys (some with decorative caps), wide flared eaves, and shed roof attic vents. There is a hipped roof wing at the rear (north). It has inset porches with cutaway bays on the left and right (west and east), a hipped roof vent, and two brick chimneys.
Historic Information
Louis Sullivan visited Ocean Springs in 1890 during a trip to New Orleans. He designed two beachfront cottages and a guest house for himself and his friends, James and Helen Charnley. In 1897, the Charnley house caught fire, but was rebuilt by the then owner, Frederick Norwood. Sullivan was, again, the architect and reconstructed the house based on the previous building, but used the "reconstruction as an opportunity to improve on the plan based on this experience with his own cottage." (from John G. Waite Associates historic structure report)

After sustaining catastrophic damage from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the house was rebuilt beginning in 2008. It was completed in 2013.