Magnolia Hall

Designed by Massachusetts architect and engineer J. Edwards Smith as the family home of Natchez native and cotton magnate Thomas Henderson, Magnolia Hall is an imposing Greek Revival structure with an opulent Ionic portico and interior Italianate embellishments in vogue “up East” at the time, most notably its marble mantels and floral designs of the center-hallway cornices and parlors’ ceiling medallions with their magnolia flourishes that influenced the mansion’s later name. 

Equally intriguing is Magnolia Hall’s brownstone exterior—walls of brick, stuccoed and then painted and scored the academically researched, original lush chocolate, replicating the modern mansions of the affluent and refined families (“Brownstoners”) of New York City and other notable up-east cities of the time. Interestingly, mid-nineteenth-century Natchez boasted over a hundred brownstone structures; Magnolia Hall is one of only two remaining and the only one restored. 

• Pilgrimage costume museum
• Newly restored original brownstone facade
• Last great mansion built downtown before the Civil War