Built 1836 Area 3,200 m² Added to NRHP 13 March 1986 | NRHP Reference # 86000331 Opened 1836 Nearest city Pontotoc | |
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Architectural style Greek Revival architecture Similar Mississippi Museum of Natural S, Jackson Zoo, Geyser Falls Water Theme P, Vicksburg National Military P, Hattiesburg Zoo | ||
Lochinvar is an antebellum home near Pontotoc, Mississippi built by Robert Gordon c. 1836.
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Architecture
The house's heart pine woodwork and handmade bricks highlight the attention to detail of its wealthy owner and the Scottish architects and builders he employed. Solid Doric style columns from a castle in Scotland support the front porches, and the balcony railing is carved to resemble English lace. An entirely self-supporting spiral staircase winds to the second floor, and a secret stairway is set between the walls in the back of the house.
History
The land on which the home stands was bought by Gordon from a Chickasaw woman, Molly Gunn, daughter of William Colbert and wife of James Gunn. Robert Gordon had immigrated to Cotton Gin Port, Mississippi, from Scotland. He excelled as a trader in the Native American communities and a landowner, and founded the town of Aberdeen in Monroe County, Mississippi. After the Chickasaw Cession of 1832 he purchased two sections of land near Pontotoc, where he built Lochinvar in 1836. He married Mary Elizabeth Walton. Their son, James Gordon, grew up in the house, married Carolina Virginia Wiley, and had two children, Annie and Robert James. James Gordon served as an officer in the Confederate Army under Jeb Stuart and Nathan Bedford Forrest, and he was briefly suspected of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. James Gordon represented Chickasaw County in the Mississippi legislature in 1857, 1878, 1886, and 1904–1908; and in December 1909 Governor Edmond F. Noel appointed him to fill the unexpired term of U.S. Senator Anselm J. McLaurin until the state legislature could elect a new senator in February 1910. James Gordon inherited Lochinvar when his father died in 1867. Lochinvar remained in the Gordon family until 1900, when J. D. Fontaine, an attorney in Pontotoc, Mississippi, bought it to use as a tenant house. Dr. Forrest Tutor and his wife, Dr. Janis Burns Tutor, purchased the home from Fontaine's son in 1966 and restored it. The house is on the National Register of Historic Places. Heavily damaged by a tornado in 2001, Lochinvar has been restored by the Tutors to its former glory. A photo album of the house is maintained by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History at the link in "External Links" below.