| "Holly Grove" in Wilkinson County is one of Mississippi's most significant residential essays in vernacular Federal style architecture. Adams, Jefferson, and Wilkinson are the only Mississippi counties with significant collections of Federal style architecture, and the most sophisticated examples are the townhouses and suburban estates of Natchez like the Mercer House, The Briars, and Arlington. Holly Grove is one of only a small number of significant Federal style rural plantation houses that are grand in proportion and finely trimmed. The house was originally built soon after the property was acquired by Duncan Stewart in 1812, and it was enlarged to its present configuration a few years later, probably around 1820. This house and its setting, consisting of 110.80 acres of land, including the family cemetery, was listed on the National Register on 12 October 1988, from a nomination prepared by consultant Mary Warren "Mimi" Miller. It is included in "Old Homes of Mississippi, Volume I: Natchez and the South" (1977) (p. 19), and "Louisiana Architecture, 1714-1820" (2004) (p. 126). |