Failing Quickly: the Susie B. Law House, Foote, Mississippi

Dear readers. in my last article, I was happy to report how a Victorian-era house in Vicksburg was finally being repaired and saved. But in the small town of Foote, along the shore of Lake Washington north of Glen Allen, the news is much worse. The Susie B. Law House on Lake Washington Road Eastside has deteriorated badly. Some of the roof shingles have fallen away, and in the wet and rainy climate of the Delta, roof leaks lead to rapid rot and deterioration of wood structures. I could already see some eaves rotting away.

Trees have fallen on the driveway and not been cleared away. Whoever owns the house had not obviously done any cleaning or repair in several years.

I wrote about the Law house in spring 2014. It was neglected then, but not as overgrown and was mostly intact. Also, back then, the roof was mostly intact. I fear the worst for this once-handsome example of a Sears Roebuck kit house.

Another piece of bad news for preservationists: just to the north, the brick walls of the once magnificent Italianate mansion known as Mount Holly sit unchanged and abandoned since the 2015 fire. Status: unknown.

The black and white 2014 photograph was taken on Panatomic-X film with a Fuji GW690II camera.

The Law House in film, Foote, Lake Washington, Mississippi

Overgrown drive welcomes paranormal investigators but no residents.

The Susie B. Law House, on Eastside Lake Washington Road, in Foote, Mississippi, has been empty for a decade or more and is deteriorating badly. I keep hearing that someone is renovating it but in April of 2017, it looked pretty bad. I wrote about the Law House in an 2014. Here are a few Panatomic-X film photographs of the house, taken on a gloomy day in 2014.

This was a handsome house originally, with symmetry and an imposing entry colonnade.

The original millwork came in kit form from Sears, Roebuck & Company.

Lake Washington from Foote.

The 2014 photographs were taken with a tripod-mounted Fuji GW690II rangefinder camera; light measured with a Luna-Pro SBC hand-held light meter. The square 2017 photograph is from a Mamiya C220 camera with 55mm Mamiya lens on Kodak Tri-X Professional 320 film.

Update: a very interesting web page describes the Sears Roebuck manufactured houses from the 1908-1940 era. The variety was amazing. Another web page, http://www.kithouse.org, describes research into kit houses around the USA.

Mount Holly Mansion - After the Fire

Mount Holly, on the pleasant shore of Lake Washington, in Foote, Mississippi, is one of those impossibly grand mansions of which many examples were built in the 1800s in various parts of the Mississippi Delta. The 30-room Mount Holly was completed in 1856 of brick with 2-ft-thick walls. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. In the 1990s or early 2000s, it had been used as a bed-and-breakfast, but had sat empty for many years. As usual, ownership was unclear. And, as so often tragically happens to neglected buildings, the mansion suffered a disastrous fire on June 17, 2015. I have not yet read an account of who was responsible, but the forlorn walls sit upright in their misery.

I took these photographs in December of 2015. There was no sign of any restoration or activity at all. What happens next? For some pre-fire photographs, please see my April 2011 blog post and read the interesting comments. Preservation Mississippi had an excellent 2010 article on Mount Holly.

Photographs taken with Kodak BW400CN film in a Leica M2 rangefinder camera. The BW400CN is sharp and fine-grain, but does not have the look of traditional silver negative films. I scanned the negatives with a Plustek 7600i scanner using Silverfast software and resized the files with ACDSee Pro 2.5 software.

Decaying Quickly: the Law House, Foote, Mississippi

A handsome white wood house faces Lake Washington in the hamlet of Foote.  Known as the Susie B. Law House, it has been neglected for 5 or 10 years and is decaying quickly. The vines are taking over, but at least in spring, you can see some of the structure.

The house is reputed to have been a kit home from Sears, Roebuck & Company.  If it was a kit, you can see the quality materials and the handsome windows. A Wikipedia article cites this reference: Hall, Russell S.; Nowell, Princella W.; Childress, Stacy. 2000. Washington County, Mississippi. Arcadia Publishing. It may have been "The Magnolia" Colonial design according to Searshomes.org. I am often surprised that we drifted away from these well-made kits with precision parts from a factory, and returned to a construction method where workers cut bulk materials on site. This latter method suffers from a lot of waste material and inefficiency (and, very often, sloppy workmanship). Look at the typical modern McMansion: you consider that precision craftsmanship??

The breezeway on the side was designed to let you unload a car with cover from rain or sun.  Someone has been here in the last few years, and the pillows looked reasonably fresh.

This was the only interior photograph I could take. A sign said, "No trespassing," so I did not venture inside. The roof is beginning to fail; see how the ceiling plaster is collapsing. It was plaster on wood lath.

A little hut in the side yard matched the main house. Was it a child's play cottage?

This is the view from the front yard of Lake Washington. It is a nice setting and superb for water fowl. Anhingas and Cormorants are common.

According to Wikipedia, the horror movie, Dark House, was filmed here in 2012. I have not seen it, but look at the official poster - it sure looks like the Law House. There is reputed to be a lot of paranormal activity here. Maybe I should return at dusk and take some more photographs....

Please click the link for some photographs of Mt. Holly, another decaying mansion just to the north.

Digital images taken with a Panasonic G3 camera with 9-18mm Olympus lens, processed with Picasa or PhotoNinja.

Update: Click the link for some film pictures of the Law House.

Update Nov. 2018: a very interesting web page describes the Sears Roebuck manufactured houses from the 1908-1940 era. The variety was amazing. Another web page, http://www.kithouse.org, describes research into kit houses around the USA.