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Longwood (also known as Nutt's Folly), is a historic antebellum octagonal mansion located in Nartchez, MS. Longwood is the largest octagonal house in America. The home is a superb example of the mid-nineteeth century "Oriental Villa" style. The mansion was designed in 1859 and begun in 1860 for wealthy cotton planter Haller Nutt and his wife Julia by Philadelphia architect Samuel Sloan.
A great octagonal rotunda is open to the entire six stories, and crowning the whole is a Byzantine-Moorish dome with a 24 foot finial. Work progressed rapidly until April, 1861. When the civil war began, Sloan's Philadelphia craftsmen dropped their tools and fled North. With local workers, Haller Nutt comleted the basement level as living quarters for his family. He died of pneumonia in 1864, but Julia and their eight children lived on in the basement until her death in 1867, and many of the family's original furnishings are displayed there today.
Haller Nutt's never-finished Natchez home, Longwood, was the last burst of southern opulence before war brought the cotton barons' dominance to an end. Longwood, fortunately, survived decades of neglect and near-abandonment to become one of Natchez's most popular attractions
Longwood is maintained in its unfinished state by the Pilgrimage Garden Club as a poignant reminder of past glories and tragedies.
For information on how to visit or rent Longwood, visit Natchez Pilgramage Tours.
(Source: Natchez Pilgram Tours, Wikipedia)
