The John W. Boddie House, also commonly known as the Tougaloo Mansion, is symmetrically proportioned and exhibits characteristic Italianate elements and ornamentation. The main body of the house rises two stories and is topped by low-sloped, hipped and gabled roofs with broad overhanging eaves and decorative brackets. The central bay of Tougaloo Mansion’s three-bay front elevation projects slightly to create a vertical emphasis that is further strengthened by a central tower rising from the roof above. Tougaloo Mansion has a single-story, full-width porch with a sleeping porch above it on the second floor. Double pilasters emphasize the projecting central bay and single pilasters define the two flanking bays. Wood rails lined with turned balusters run between the pilasters on either side of the central bay. A smaller porch is centered on the north elevation. Simple corner pilasters rise from a wood water table skirt above the stuccoed brick foundation wall to a frieze with continuous acanthus leaf details and dentils below that extends around the house just below the roof brackets. Together, the pilasters and frieze frame each elevation. Wall surfaces consist of horizontal, plain beveled, lapped siding. The one-story rooms attached to Tougaloo Mansions west side deviates somewhat from the organizing framework and language of detail evident in the main body of the house. One of the rooms sits directly in front of the rear door, blocking the main axis of the house. Both rooms are covered by a low-sloped rood with shallow eaves. The windows in this area match those on the rest of the house in height and detail, but are half as wide.
The interior of Tougaloo Mansion is a variation of the central hall plan and was originally identical on the first and second floors. The prominent front door, set within an arched architrave, opens into the central hall, which runs east-west and separates the two sides of the house. The double front doors are of six-panel, stile and rail construction with additional wood molding framing each panel. Above the doors, a semicircular fanlight provides the only direct source of natural light into the entrance hall. The hall contains a dark stained, parquet wood floor and plaster walls and ceilings. A tall wood baseboard lines the perimeter of the hall at the floor. An elaborate plaster frieze cornice runs just below the ceiling. Five tall, six-panel stile and rail doors with transoms open into the flanking rooms. Massive wood architraves surround each door and are topped with broad cornices. From the center of the hall, a long, narrow stair rises up to a landing at the hall’s west end. From the landing, lit from above by a high window, two short flights of stairs double back and lead up to the second floor central hall. The newel post, rails and balusters are of dark stained mahogany and the treads and risers are of dark stained pine. At the top of the stairs on the second floor, the original open central hall has been divided by the construction of a will midway along its length. The floor is dark stained pine and the plaster cornice is simpler than the first floor. At the eastern end of the second floor hall, through an arch with carved wood brackets, a flight of stairs leads to the tower above. The tower room is square and consists mostly of a perimeter walkway. |