Stanton Hall

Stanton Hall
Stanton Hall in 2008
Location 401 High Street, Natchez, Mississippi
Coordinates 31°33′45″N 91°24′03″W / 31.562621°N 91.400730°W / 31.562621; -91.400730Coordinates: 31°33′45″N 91°24′03″W / 31.562621°N 91.400730°W / 31.562621; -91.400730
Built 1851
Architectural style Antebellum Classical Revival
NRHP reference # 74002254
USMS # 001-NAT-0188-NHL-NRD-ML
Significant dates
Added to NRHP May 30, 1974[1]
Designated NHL May 30, 1974[2]
Designated USMS March 21, 1995[3]

Stanton Hall, also known as Belfast, is an Antebellum Classical Revival mansion at 401 High Street in Natchez, Mississippi. Built in the 1850s, it is one of the most opulent antebellum mansions to survive in the southeastern United States. It is now operated as a historic house museum by the Pilgrimage Garden Club. The house was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1974[2][4] and a Mississippi Landmark in 1995.[3]

Description

Stanton Hall occupies an entire 2-acre (0.81 ha) city block north of downtown Natchez, bounded by High, Commerce, Monroe, and Pearl Streets. The property is ringed by wrought iron fencing with elaborate gate posts. The house is a two-story brick structure, plastered and painted white. Its front entrance features a two-story Greek temple portico, with four fluted Corinthian columns supporting an entablature and gabled pediment. Spaces between the columns have decorative iron railings, repeated in a second-floor balcony railing set under the portico. The main roof is hipped, and truncated with a large cupola at the center. The interior is elaborately decorated, using materials such as imported Italian marble, and chandeliers made of glass and bronze.[4]

History

Stanton Hall, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1938

Stanton Hall was built during 1851–57 for Frederick Stanton, a cotton broker, as a replica of his ancestral home in Ireland. Stanton named it "Belfast", but only lived in it a short time before he died. The house's scale and opulence made it a great financial burden on his heirs, but it survived the American Civil War, and in 1890 was made home to the Stanton College for Young Ladies. In 1940 it was acquired by the Pilgrimage Garden Club,[4] which uses it as its headquarters and operates it as a museum and event venue.

The mansion serves as a design for Disneyland's Haunted Mansion.

The house's insides have appeared in ABC's mini-series North and South as the Mains' mansion interiors.[Note 1] The house was also seen briefly in Show Boat (1951).

In South and West: From a Notebook, Joan Didion writes that Ben Toledano's wife suggested she visit Stanton Hall as well as the Asphodel Plantation, the Oakley Plantation and the Rosedown Plantation to understand the South better.[5]

Notes

  1. ↑ The exteriors were filmed at the Boone Hall Plantation, near Charleston, South Carolina

References

  1. ↑ National Park Service (2007-01-23). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
  2. 1 2 "Stanton Hall". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Retrieved 2007-10-23.
  3. 1 2 "Mississippi Landmarks" (PDF). Mississippi Department of Archives and History. May 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 9, 2010. Retrieved April 20, 2009.
  4. 1 2 3 Paul Goeldner (January 8, 1974). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Stanton Hall" (pdf). National Park Service. and Accompanying 3 photos, exterior and interior, from 1973 and undated. (1.35 MB)
  5. ↑ Didion, Joan (2017). South and West: From a Notebook. London, U.K.: 4th Estate. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-00-825717-0.

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