Mansion · Natchez, Mississippi · Built c. 1855–1856
Dunleith
A Natchez plantation house of about 1855 wrapped on all four sides by 26 giant Tuscan columns, Mississippi's only surviving fully colonnaded example, with Gothic castellated outbuildings and a three-story service wing.
History
The land was first Routhland, the plantation of Job Routh, who built a one-story house here in the late eighteenth century and later raised it to two stories with galleries. It passed to his daughter Mary Routh and her husband, Charles G. Dahlgren, a Natchez banker who would become a Confederate brigadier general and whose brother John A. Dahlgren became a Union rear admiral. After lightning set Routhland afire in 1855, Dahlgren built the present house on the site. When his wife died, he honored her wish by buying the property from her estate and selling it so the proceeds could be divided among her children. The buyer, Alfred Vidal Davis, renamed it Dunleith in 1858 or 1859.
Like the other great Natchez houses, Dunleith rested on enslaved labor; the three-story brick service wing behind it held the kitchen, laundry and quarters for enslaved workers. Wikipedia records John Roy Lynch, born enslaved in Louisiana and later Speaker of the Mississippi House and a U.S. congressman, among those who lived here. The house was documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1936, appeared in the 1957 film Raintree County, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1974. From 1976 it operated as an inn with tours, restaurant and guest rooms spread through the main house, service wing and dairy barn. It was offered at a foreclosure auction in February 2019 and passed to its lender when no bids came in.
“Full peripteral colonnaded plantation houses were built throughout the South and represent the ultimate in architectural expenditure more often than the pure fulfillment of Greek temple form.”
Architecture
Dunleith is a square, two-story house of plastered brick completely surrounded by a gallery on 26 giant Tuscan columns, also of stuccoed brick, painted white. Cast-iron railings of different patterns enclose both gallery levels, and the front and rear doorways are monumental, framed by pilasters, sidelights, transoms and a heavy entablature. Six dormers with swelling baroque sides break the hipped roof; a rooftop cupola was removed by an earlier owner. Inside, wide center halls with 15-foot ceilings divide paired rooms with carved Carrara, Verona and Florentine marble mantels, acanthus-and-lotus plaster medallions and floor-length windows that open six feet high onto the galleries. The service wing kept remnants of a rare mid-century plumbing and heating system.
What to look for
- Twenty-six Tuscan columns on all four sides
- Iron gallery railings of different patterns
- Baroque-sided dormers on the hipped roof
- Castellated brick barn and turreted dovecote
- Broad stucco steps with urns on the south terraces
Setting
The house stands on about forty acres of lawns and terraced slopes off Homochitto Street on the south side of Natchez. Behind it, terraces step down to a garage and kennel block topped by a turreted, three-tier dovecote, and in the meadow west of the house is a castellated two-story brick barn with a carriage ramp. A Tudor-gabled servants' lodge and a greenhouse match the barn's Gothic style.
Timeline
- 1790sJob Routh builds Routhland on the site
- 1855Routhland burns; Charles G. Dahlgren begins the present house
- 1858–1859Sold to Alfred Vidal Davis and renamed Dunleith
- 1936Recorded by the Historic American Buildings Survey
- 1974Designated a National Historic Landmark
- 1976Opens as an inn
- 2019Foreclosure auction; property passes to the lender
Where sources differ
- The sale to Davis is dated 1858 by Wikipedia and 1859 by the nomination; Dahlgren's middle initial is given as G. and C. in different sources.
- The nature of John Roy Lynch's residence at Dunleith is not described in the sources.
