Unlike yesterday’s Rice-Stix Factory in Water Valley, you won’t have a chance to visit today’s featured building when you attend next week’s ListenUp! preservation conference. Probably designed and built by architect Gustavus M. Torgerson in 1876, the eclectic, Second Empire-style Skipwith House was demolished in 1976 for the expansion of the University Museum. Thankfully, HABS documented the building in photographs (no drawings), and even included the outhouse with its kid- and adult-height seats.
MS-246-1. Skipwith House, University of Mississippi, South Front. March 1975, Jack E. Boucher, HABS Photographer.
MS-246-2. Skipwith House, University of Mississippi, South Front, Entrance. March 1975, Jack E. Boucher, HABS Photographer.
MS-246-1. Skipwith House, University of Mississippi, South Front from Southeast. March 1975, Jack E. Boucher, HABS Photographer.
MS-246-1. Skipwith House, University of Mississippi, East Side. March 1975, Jack E. Boucher, HABS Photographer.
MS-246-1. Skipwith House, University of Mississippi, South Front from Southwest. March 1975, Jack E. Boucher, HABS Photographer.
MS-246-1. Skipwith House, University of Mississippi, West Side from Northwest. March 1975, Jack E. Boucher, HABS Photographer.
MS-246-1. Skipwith House, University of Mississippi, Interior, First Floor. March 1975, Jack E. Boucher, HABS Photographer.
MS-246-1. Skipwith House, University of Mississippi, Interior, Fireplace. March 1975, Jack E. Boucher, HABS Photographer.
MS-246-1. Skipwith House, University of Mississippi, Outhouse, exterior. March 1975, Jack E. Boucher, HABS Photographer.
MS-246-1. Skipwith House, University of Mississippi, Outhouse, interior. March 1975, Jack E. Boucher, HABS Photographer.
HABS Survey Number: HABS MS-246
See also:
HABS webpage
Mississippi Historic Resources Database.
Categories: Architectural Research, Demolition/Abandonment, Historic American Building Survey (HABS), Oxford
Preservation in Mississippi 
Beautiful house, and the staircase looks like a work of art. What was the long ell at the rear?
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Typically that would be a service wing, kitchen, pantry, etc, sometimes a servant’s living quarters.
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These photos are treasures. My grandparents lived just down the street and I remember hearing them and my parents talk about Miss Kate – is this the same Kate? And I’m wondering why the house was demolished. What a shame.
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Demolition of a historic building, the typical Ole Miss modus operandi. The Skipwith House’s history is chronicled in Lost Mansions of Mississippi, Volume II.
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