If you’ve been reading MissPres for the last 6 months or so, you’ll be familiar with the sad saga of the Lipscomb House, a sweet 1880s Queen Anne cottage listed on the National Register as part of the Columbus Central Commercial Historic District and locally protected in the Columbus Historic Preservation District. It is situated on a corner near the courthouse in Columbus, a town renowned for its historic buildings and an early adopter of the Pilgrimage model of heritage tourism.
Here’s the Lipscomb House before its owner died, mature azaleas and magnolias gracing its lawn in a streetview photo almost worthy of a Pilgrimage brochure.
223 6th St Columbus Lowndes County Miss. April 2013 Google Street View
As you may recall, the estate, represented by attorney David Sanders, made a deal with the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors, chaired by brother-of-David, Harry Sanders, to sell the property for $190,000 (the value with the house) but as a vacant lot that the county could then use for parking, or an addition, or . . . well whatever. As Slim Smith noted in his March 30 editorial in The Dispatch:
If you want to buy a comparable empty lot in the city of Columbus, you could expect to pay about $20,000 for it. So, if it was the county’s desire to buy an empty lot, it should have ordered an appraisal for the value of the land alone, not the “improvement” on the property, i.e., the house — a house the supervisors made clear they does not want.
I mean, seriously, FBI, it seems like time for another Operation Pretense up in here.
Anyway, long and sordid story short, the Columbus Historic Preservation Commission only has the authority to place a moratorium on demolition–it cannot deny demolition outright–so the estate finally got its demolition permit, and for a month or so the house has been undergoing . . . well, I think it’s called salvage, but it looks as much like vandalism to me. Poor thing is being ripped apart and left hanging.
Columbus, are you going to use any of these pictures in your next Pilgrimage brochure? (Between now and then, maybe you should revisit your historic preservation ordinance to give the commission the authority to deny a demolition permit.)
Lowndes County, time to vote these bums out of office.
Categories: Columbus, Demolition/Abandonment, Historic Preservation, Preservation Law/Local Commissions
Preservation in Mississippi 
This is how we knew it would end up, but it does not make it any easier to look at.
One note about the house, look at the crown molding in photos 1, 8, and 9, quite impressive, as is the arched ornamental woodwork in what was, I believe, the hallway.
While all this may be salvaged, as has been stated ad nauseam on this site, Demolition ≠ Preservation, regardless of any statements to the contrary. Just because the wood is not going to a landfill does not mean the Lipscomb House is any less demolished or any more preserved.
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According to Columbus City Council minutes, the house was demolished September 10-12. The council ordered the street closed during those days so that the demolition company could work. It is in the minutes under V. Consent Agenda, Item P. https://www.thecityofcolumbusms.org/home/showdocument?id=3395
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The Lowndes County Board of Supervisors President Sanders boasted that the city now owns the whole block. And this is how the he and city council reward the legacy of Lipscomb for his work in guaranteeing that the sixteenth-section land lease holders of Columbus held leases that were “forever renewable.” An historic ruling by the Federales.
http://www.cdispatch.com/opinions/article.asp?aid=57345
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