On my recent trip to Greenville, I swung through the Lake Washington community to check on Mt. Holly, the Italianate antebellum mansion that I had heard was falling into disrepair. As you may recall, Mt. Holly was one of the mystery places in our latest Name This Place contest, and to summarize the information we discovered from the answers to that post: Mt. Holly was completed around 1859 and is very similar to Oxford’s “Ammadelle,” both being based on the same published drawing by New York architect Calvert Vaux in his “Villas and Cottages.”
Many people more knowledgeable than me believe that the Vaux plan was adapted to Mt. Holly by Kentucky architect Thomas Lewinsky, who also designed Henry Clay’s “Ashland” and Natchez’ Memorial Hall. This connection is not firmly documented as far as I can tell. If you missed the discussion about this, you can catch it in the comments to Name This Place 4.2
I came across a little historical account of the house and property when I was researching it at MDAH. In the 1910 “Greenville Times Souvenir Edition” under the heading “A Successful Planter, Mr. Hugh L. Foote,” we find this description of the owner and the house:
Mr. Foote came to the Delta when but a stripling of a boy from Macon, Miss., Neshoba’s county seat [actually it's Noxubee County]. At first he began his planting on a small scale, but by ability, the practice of economy and possessing an eagle eye for good investments, he has yearly added to his planting interests until today . . . he owns one of the finest pieces of property in the Great Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, together with a plantation at Egremont, in Sharkey county, noted for its fertility.
Mr. Foote, with his family, resides on the Dudley Lake Washington plantation. The home is in a way an ideal one, being constructed of brick, before the war, by the hands on the place, from the soil on which it stands, it holds a place in the Southern heart. The rooms are many and large, and spacious halls run through the entire house. By the aid of a tank, water is run into every room of the home and every other convenience, enjoyed by the residents of a city, are enjoyed by Mr. Foote and his estimable family.
Calvert Vaux published plan, Villas and Cottages
Unfortunately, this amazing mansion sitting on a special atmospheric spot in the Delta has been abandoned for about a decade by my reckoning. I believe the previous owners died, and the house was sold around 2001 to a buyer from Texas. For some reason, this new owner has done nothing with the property, and it is starting to really show signs of neglect.
While on site, I noticed another issue apart from lack of maintenance; in fact, I guess it could be chalked up to over-maintenance, or incorrect maintenance. It looks like an earlier owner, maybe in the 1970s or 1980s, no doubt with the best of intentions, decided to repoint the brick, replacing the original lime mortar–which is naturally very soft–with a portland cement-based mortar–which is very hard. You would think that a hard mortar would be better for the house than a soft mortar, but when hard mortar is placed next to soft 19th-century bricks that weren’t baked to the same hardness as bricks are today, the wall can’t react to the change in seasons as it’s supposed to. Because of this new rigidity, as the wall expands and contracts with the freezing and thawing of the air, the bricks begin to break down, often losing their outer skin and exposing their even softer interior sections, which begin breaking down with the rains. You can read more about this in the National Park Service’s Preservation Brief: Repointing Mortar Joints in Historic Masonry Buildings and a good summary of portland cement vs. lime mortars at U.S. Heritage Group’s site.
I’m hoping for the best for Mt. Holly. I’m not sure that it’s for sale: does anyone out there know? Maybe if somebody made an offer, the owner would jump at the chance to get it off his hands and let somebody else fix this rare and beautiful Delta mansion and make it their home.
brick spalling on front porch column
Large side porch with entrances from parlor and dining room
Side porch with view toward the lake
more mortar/brick problems
This has eerie similarities with Arlington without the fire. Does anyone know much about the owner?
The owners name is Matt Wiggins. He lives in Clinton and owns a bed and breakfast there. Don’t have a phone number, but maybe could find it out. So wish someone would buy it and fix it up. In our area it is truly a one of a kind house. Have been in it on many occasions. It is amazing. It would have to be someone who really wants a big project.
There are plenty of people with money, just maybe not willing or interested in this project. I wonder if Mr. Wiggins would even be interested in selling? Did he buy it to start a B&B there and it just never materialized?
To my knowledge, when he bought the house he just needed a way to spend some money. I don’t know if he ever had serious intentions to renovate the house. The owners before him did use the house as their personal residence and as a bed and breakfast. I think the upkeep just got too much for them. I would think Mr. Wiggins would be delighted to sell!
Lake Washington is such a fascinating area, and the ruins of St. John’s are also really fun to explore. When I first saw Mt. Holly, I was shocked by the shape it was in, especially considering its history and how it may be the most significant antebellum house in the Delta. I’ve seen a copy of the original Vaux plan and vignette in his book, and while Mt. Holly is not an exact copy, it could definitely have been influenced by it. Also, Vaux, although influenced by this earlier plan, drew a specific one for Ammadelle that varies slightly. I believe he was also responsible for the landscaping there (so a house in Oxford has the distinction of being landscaped by the same guy as Central Park!) and considered it one of his best works.
Cool–I didn’t know that about the landscaping!
I hear from another reader that the owner also has ties to Jackson, so I don’t know whether he lives in Texas or here. I also hear speculation that architectural salvage was more in the plans when he acquired the house, but that may be just hearsay. I didn’t see any evidence that the house was being stripped when I took these pictures a few months ago, just general neglect. That Lake Washington community seems very close-knit and I would think they would put a stop to any such capers if they saw them happening.
Has anyone seen a map or plan of plantations or established antebellum properties in the delta or along the mississippi river between vicksburg and memphis?
How isolated where the folks who built and initially lived in Mt. Holly?
The book, LIKE SOME GREEN HOLLY , which are the letters of Margaret Johnson Erwin (1821-1863), gives the details of the planning and building of Mount Holly. The architect was Samuel Sloan, who also designed Longwood in Natchez. She despised Calvert Vaux. This book was compiled by her Great-Grandson, John Seymour Erwin and published by LSU Press.
After reading this book it so sad the Mount Holly is in such a deteriorated condition.
Well, on the one hand I want to thank you for introducing me to this book, of which I hadn’t been aware, but after digging into it, I kind of wish I hadn’t been introduced to the snake pit of controversy that surrounds Like Some Green Laurel. Finding that there was a whole string of back-and-forth articles and letters to the editor in The Journal of American History in 1983, I got a friend who has access to JSTOR online to print them out for me, and WOW! was I unprepared for what they contained: pretty serious accusations that seem to add up to the letters being fabrications, with people and events that could not have happened because the people were either dead or known to be elsewhere at the time, etc.
I read the counter-accusations from the LSU editor and Mr. Erwin against John Simon who wrote the initial article hoping they might convince me that Simon was way off-base, but unfortunately, all they seemed to do was sling mud and hope some of it stuck.
So, I’m not an expert on this, but given the evidence before my eyes, which is that the house looks like a mirror image of Calvert Vaux’s published plans, I’m going to stick with that unless the controversy surrounding Like Some Green Laurel is explained and clarified in favor of the Sloan attribution.
Nevertheless, it is heartbreaking to see the house this way, and hopefully someone will come forward to buy it and repair it and love it like the original family did.
Well I am gullible as I thought anything historical published by LSU press was reliable. I thought though as I read this book that U.S. Grant was pictured in an unfavorable light whereas W.T. Sherman was almost a member of the family.
H.B. Stowe was the real villain…. according to Mrs. Margaret.
I did think it was highly unlikely for one person of whom most have never heard was in such close proximity to so many historical figures of that age.
Hopefully this old historical home may be restored. I would like to visit it!
You aren’t at all gullible–LSU is a reputable press, very much so in southern history, so I would have completely trusted the source except for a friend who pointed me to these articles in the JAH. But you’re right, once I read the criticisms, they made sense–how did this one lady know all these people and have such strong, almost prescient opinions about them? Simon in fact points out that her opinions about Uncle Tom’s Cabin predate the publication of the book, and Grant and Sherman weren’t in New Orleans together as she asserts in some articles, etc.
I can send you a copy of the article if you’d like to read it, or if you have access to the JAH, the initial article and LSU response are in March 1983, and Mr. Erwin’s response and Simon’s response are in June 1983. Since you’ve read the book–I haven’t–I’d be interested in your thoughts about the controversy.
The letter to the JAH editor from the LSU editor was actually the most disturbing of the bunch–it’s in March 1983. She really tears into Simon and the JAH for running his article, and defends the book by essentially saying, “yeah there are mistakes, but it gives the spirit of this interesting Southern woman and isn’t meant to be taken as documented history.” Very weird.
Sometimes I veer between unquestioning trust and complete suspicion, so this whole thing reminds me again, as I need to be reminded, that a healthy level of discernment must be brought to bear on all historical sources, even when they come from what we expect to be trusted sources.
By all means read the book. You may have access to it on the www. Most of it are the letters (spurious?) by Margaret to a few individuals.(most to Sloan) The best part are the photographs and family tree. There are floor plans by Vaux and by Sloan showing the difference between the two and the current Mt. Holly She was from Kentucky where much of of her life was spent before moving to New Orleans. They were related and close friends with Henry Clay whom she calls “Uncle H.” According to the book, they owned plantations in several states and were very wealthy. She paid $100,000 for the land on which Mt. Holly was built. (quite a sum!)
Even though this may be a 19th century, “Da Vinci Code,” it contains lots of historical tidbits.
I visited Mount Holly in the mid 1980′s. It was amazing. It is a travesty that the Magnificent home has been allowed to get in its present shape. Shame on the present owner. I hope he will decide to repair it to the grandeur the home deserves.
Personally I think the best option for the house now is a new owner, but if that doesn’t happen, at least the current owner needs to take some basic protective measures for the good of the house. Glad you got to see it in its prime.
Has anyone heard of any ghost stories related to the history of Mount Holly.
Not I, but then again when it comes to ghost stories I’m a non-believer so I tend to tune them out, I’m afraid. Maybe somebody else round these parts knows one.
BS”D
Just came back from Greenville after 30 years…ok..this is a crime…can’t someone find out what the deal is with this property. We’d be interested in buying it.
412 287 7810
See my earlier post on March 1st. The owner’s name is Matt Wiggins, and he lives in the Clinton area. Could probably find a phone number for you.
Mr. Wiggins replied by letter to my request to include Mount Holly in “Great Houses of Mississippi”; that was around 2002. I haven’t been able to locate him since, and MH looks more forlorn every time I go over to Lake Washington. As to the question someone asked about the isolation of this area: There was a large and prosperous group of settlers, primarily from Kentucky, in the Lake Washington area from the 1830s-on. For the antebellum Mississippi Delta, MH wasn’t isolated at all. And several of my most reliable historic architecture sources around Mississippi consider “Like Some Green Laurel” to be the most egregious hoax ever perpetrated on an academic press.
Across the river, in Chicot County, Arkansas, is Lakeport Plantation. Lakeport was built for Lycurgus and Lydia Johnson ca. 1859. Johnson was Margaret Johnson Erwin’s first cousin. There were a lot of family connections between the planters in Washington Co, MS and Chicot Co, AR: Lydia’s sister, Anne Taylor, was married to Isaac M. Worthington, who built Belmont ca. 1857. Isaac Worthington Jr. married one of Lycugus and Lydia’s daughters and they later lived at Lakeport in the 1870s/80s.
Lakeport has been restored by Arkansas State University and is open to the public. http://lakeport.astate.edu/Visiting.html
I sure wish I knew the true history of Margaret Johnson Erwin and the history of the building of Mount Holly. The Kentucky connection is really a history in itself.
Matt Wiggins lives in Kemah TX and is the mayor there. Maybe someone can contact him about purchasing Mount Holly. It’s definitely a shame for this historic, previously regal property fall to pieces.
Well isn’t that an interesting tidbit? I know several people have contacted me about how to get in touch with Mr. Wiggins about buying the house, so there’s interest out there, but I haven’t heard back about whether he’s willing to sell or at what price.