DESTINATIONS | beauvoir

B EAUTIFUL A GAIN
Hattiesburg architect Larry Albert
oversees restoration of historic Beauvoir
O
TEXT BY VALERIE WELLS
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY ALBERT & ASSOCIATES

One of the signs of the Gulf Coast’s rejuvenation is a

white, raised cottage Greek Revival home built in 1848 on
a prominent corner in an old city.
Beauvoir, the small mansion in Biloxi where Jefferson
Davis spent his retirement, survived 21 hurricanes before
2005. The president of the Confederacy moved to this
beachfront property in 1877 and lived here until he died
in 1889.
After Hurricane Katrina ripped the porch off the old
house and left behind a skeleton of wood, many assumed
Beauvoir was hopelessly destroyed.
Now restored, Beauvoir - French for beautiful to look
at - hides an invisible strength inside its graceful walls.
“We have made the building 90 percent stronger than
before Katrina,” said Larry Albert, the Hattiesburg archi-
tect who oversaw the detailed historic renovation.

The ceiling of the formal reception hall is
the star attaction.
18 a cc e n t s o u t h m i s s i s s i p p i
Reinforced steel is the hidden skeleton of the house
now that buckles Beauvoir tightly to the ground.
Surrounded by wood and steel, visitors would not be
able to see the steel. Instead, they would see a scene
from the late 19th century.
“It looks the same now,” Albert said.
Other treasures to look for are the wall and ceiling
paintings. Visitors who saw Beauvoir before Katrina
will see richer colors in the restoration, including a
faux painted oak door.
Albert began the massive undertaking in May 2006.
The work took just a little more than one year. On
Jefferson Davis’s 200th birthday on June 3, 2007,
Beauvoir reopened to the public.
“It’s worth a trip to see it replicated,” Albert said.
About 100 to 150 visitors come to the grounds every
day, said Rick Forte, acting director and chairman of
the board of Mississippi Division of the Sons of
Confederate Veterans, the organization that owns
and operates the site. He’d like to see closer to 250
visitors daily to help offset the costs of rebuilding
and maintaining the property.
“If Jefferson Davis hadn’t lived in Beauvoir, a
casino would be there now,” Forte said.
Just like the hidden steel that keeps the house
buckled to the ground, Jefferson Davis the man has
more layers than what most of us remember - that
he was the political head of the South during the
Civil War.
Forte wants visitors to know Davis was also a
U.S. senator, a hero of the Mexican War, secretary
of war under President Pierce and a founder of the
Smithsonian Institution. If not for the Civil War (or
the War Between the States if you prefer) , Davis
would have been president of the United States,
Forte contends.
After Davis died, the 51 acres with cottages
became a home for Confederate veterans and their
widows. As late as the 1950s, some of the last
Confederate widows were still living on the
grounds. Forte’s mission today is to “educate the
world about Jefferson Davis and the Confederate
soldier.”
A cemetery on the property includes the graves
of hundreds of Confederate soldiers.
Besides the Greek Revival home and its furnish-
ings, other buildings on site include replicas of the
cottages that were destroyed by Katrina. A new
presidential library and museum will be built just
30 yards away from where the old one was, a move
dictated in order to get federal money to fund the
rebuild. Other outbuildings that were lost to
Katrina will be replicated in accurate historic detail.
Plans to recreate Varina Davis’s flower and veg-
etable garden will be historically correct also, only
using plants Miss Varina would have used. Above, the parlor leading to the library and
Beauvoir is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day beams removed from Beauvoir during the
restoration process.
except Thanksgiving and Christmas.
It’s easy to find, too. The address, 2244 Beach
Blvd., is at the corner of U.S. 90 and Beauvoir Road,
right next to the Mississippi Gulf Coast Coliseum.
Guided tours are available to adults for $9 and chil-
dren for $5. For information, call (228) 388-4400 or
go to www.beauvoir.org.

a cc e n t s o u t h m i s s i s s i p p i 19