Stanton Hall, also known as Belfast, is a Greek Revival mansion within the Natchez On-Top-of-the-Hill Historic District 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; a pivotal property inside the Natchez On-Top-of-the-Hill Historic District in 1979; and a Mississippi Landmark in 1995.

Description

Stanton Hall occupies an entire 2 acre 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 three-story brick structure, plastered and painted white. It was designed and built by Thomas Rose, a local builder and English immigrant. Its front entrance features a two-story Greek temple portico, with four fluted cast-iron 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, textiles from Paris and chandeliers made of glass and bronze.

History

Stanton Hall was built during 1851–1857 for Frederick Stanton, a cotton broker. Stanton named it "Belfast", but only lived in it for nine months before he died of yellow fever. 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, which uses it as its headquarters and operates it as a museum and event venue.

In popular culture

The house's insides have appeared in ABC's mini-series North and South as the Mains' mansion interiors. 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.