| Although the main house no longer stands (having burned in November 1967), this plantation complex retains an impressive group of other early buildings, including a beautiful antebellum Gothic chapel, a parsonage, two dependencies, a carriage house, and a billiard hall. As a whole, the plantation is one of the most architecturally significant plantation complexes in the state of Mississippi. This architectural significance is derived principally from the c.1837 chapel, one of Mississippi's finest, earliest, and most unique essays in the Gothic style, and a documented example of a building constructed by Natchez builder/architect James Hardie. "Laurel Hill Plantation was established in the mid-1770s by brothers Richard and John Ellis who received a 20,000-acre English land grant and probably enjoys the longest history of ownership by a single family in the state of Mississippi--the present owner, Pierce Butler, is the great-great-great-great-great grandson of Richard Ellis. The Ellis family were leaders of the county gentry from the 1770s up to the Civil War (James, "Antebellum Natchez," pp. 17, 149)." (information compiled by Mimi Miller, Historic Natchez Foundation, c.1986) This plantation property, consisting of 150 acres, was listed on the National Register on 26 October 1982. A conservation easement on the complex was donated to the Department of Archives and History in 1998, and it was designated a Mississippi Landmark on 14 December 1999. Ken P’Pool visited the complex and took numerous photos on 16 November 2001. It is included in "Lost Mansions of Mississippi, Volume II" (2010) (pp. 2-15). |