holly springs

Walter Place, Estate of the Day

Filed under: Estates

Today's home is a truly unique twist on antebellum Greek Revival style in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Harvey Washington Walter, who made a fortune building the Mississippi Central Railroad, asked the town's architect, Spires Boling, to create something different from other grand mansions in the area. The center of the house is classic Greek Revival but Boling added massive medieval Gothic towers with castellated battlements to each end of the house. The home, constructed in 1859, was among the last great mansions built before the Civil War. During the Civil War, general and future president Ulysses S. Grant moved his wife Julia into the home. The mansion later became a hospital for victims of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878. The home was later restored and reflects the styles of its original era.

The home on 15 acres includes the huge columned brick main house as well as two architecturally significant 1830s guest "cottages." In between there is a botanical park designed in 1903 by a famed landscape architect. It has hundred year old trees & hills, a pond, waterfalls and paths. This home is listed at $15 million with Dorian Bennett Sothebys.

Gallery: Walter Place