This week’s Mississippi Craftsman building is the old Y-Hut on the former Whitworth College campus, now the Mississippi School for the Arts in Brookhaven. This is just one of several buildings on the previously abandoned campus that is now looking spiffy and happy since kids have returned. The “Y” in “Y-Hut” stands for “YWCA” as in Young Women’s Christian Association–Whitworth was a Methodist women’s college.

Built in 1920, the Y-Hut is a fairly simple rectangular building on a raised foundation, but its simple but effective Craftsman porch grabs the attention with its exposed rafters, wide eaves (which are great for any porch anyway), decorative purlins (the wood members under the eave in the gable end), geometric half timbering, and box columns. The long side gable roof gives the building the horizontal, organic profile so prized in the Craftsman world, and the 3/1 windows complete the composition. The thing about these simple buildings is how easily their architectural integrity can be compromised by just the removal of one or two pieces–cover the eaves “to keep the rafters from rotting” and you really take away an important textural element. Cover the half timbering or paint it out and how dull the porch would become. Details are important, y’all!

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Can’t get enough of Craftsman?

• Craftsman Style in Mississippi
• Greenville Craftsman: Leavenworth-Wasson-Carroll House
• Lameuse Street Craftsman (Biloxi)
• Hattiesburg Craftsman: Corley Griffen House
• Magnolia Craftsman
• Belhaven Craftsman: N.W. Overstreet House
• Fernwood Craftsman
• Craftsman Porches of Yazoo City
• Purvis Women’s Club
• Drummond Street Craftsman (Vicksburg)
• Belhaven Craftsman: Emmett J. Hull House
• Money Craftsman

Categories: Architectural Research, Brookhaven

Tags: Featured