Homewood was located north of the Natchez, Mississippi city limits on Pine Ridge Road.^[2]

Homewood was the antebellum plantation home of William S. Balfour and his wife, Catherine Hunt.^[3] It adjoined Catherine's sister Charlotte's Lansdowne Plantation.^[3] The 600 acre Homewood Plantation was a wedding gift to William and Catherine from Catherine's millionaire, planter father David Hunt.^[4] William S. Balfour's father, William L. Balfour of Madison County, Mississippi, was one of the richest Mississippi antebellum planters.^[4] He was a founder of the Mississippi College at Clinton.^[4] James Buchanan had picked him to run as his vice-president in the 1857 presidential election; however, he died before the election.^[2]

William and Catherine's mansion on Homewood Plantation was the suburban Natchez equal of nearby Stanton Hall, which was in the town of Natchez.^[5] The mansion, designed by Scottish architect James Hardie, took the five years from 1855 to 1860 to build.^[6][7] While it was being built, William and Catherine lived on his Issaquena County, Mississippi Plantation.^[4] This 1,400 acre plantation was known as Fairland and was near the Hunt family's Issaquena County plantations.^[8] William had 177 slaves in Issaquena County in 1860.^[9] The Balfours moved to Homewood in 1860 with their six children.^[3] During the American Civil War of 1861-1865, William served in the Confederate States Army as a Major, and Catherine left by carriage with her children for about one year, moving from place to place.^[3] The family returned after the war to find that Homewood was intact.^[3] Without the slave labor from before the war, the Balfour's wealth began to decline.^[3] Generally, Catherine and her siblings used Cincinnati, Ohio real estate, inherited from her father David, mortgages on their plantations, and whatever else they had to support themselves after the war.^[3]

The Balfours sold Homewood to Mr. and Mrs. William J. Kaiser of Natchez in 1907.^[2][7] The Kaisers ran a dairy farm on the plantation.^[2] Some scenes from the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation were made on the grounds and porches of Homewood.^[6] Beginning in 1932 Homewood became well known, because it was on the annual Natchez Pilgrimage houses tour.^[2]

When their children were grown, the Kaisers sold the mansion and 73 acres in 1937 to Mr. and Mrs. Swan of New York, who had visited Homewood on a Pilgrimage tour, for $35,000.^[2][10] Mrs. Swan caused a lot of talk in Natchez.^[2] She and her husband, who was much younger, spent huge sums modernizing the mansion and expanding the gardens during the last years of the Great Depression.^[2] Their dogs slept on Beautyrest mattresses.^[2] The mansion caught fire in 1940.^[2] As it was burning to the ground, Mrs. Swan, with a bottle of whiskey in her hand, slowed the firemen's efforts by ordering them off the property.^[10] People speculated that the Swans intentionally burned the mansion.^[10] The Swans, however, collected $43,000 in damages from five insurance companies as a result of the fire and returned to live in New York.^[10] The old antebellum kitchen dependency building, which survived the fire, has been remodeled for use as a residence.^[10] The plantation was later sold to William D. Meriwether, Sarah J. Meriwether, and their children. The old carriage house, which also survived the fire, has been a residence and a clubhouse for the Natchez Country Club.^[10]

The Homewood mansion was about 72 by 96 feet.^[2] It had five floors.^[7] The basement had several rooms with fireplaces.^[4] The first floor had six rooms.^[2] The first floor rooms were divided by a center hall and a cross hall that ran just behind the two front rooms.^[7] The library, front portion of the center hall, and the parlor could be combined into a 72 foot long ballroom, when the large solid mahogany pocket doors connecting them were opened, that stretched across the front of the house.^[2][6] The second floor had a similar floor plan to the first floor.^[2] The attic floor had a large center room surrounded by eight small storage rooms.^[2][7] From the cupola and the adjoining widow's walk on top of the mansion, the town of Natchez could be seen in the distance.^[2]

The mansion had two and one-half foot thick brick walls and thirty-five foot high, metal front porch columns with Ionic capitals.^[3] The sidelight windows beside the front door had imported pink glass from Belgium.^[11] Both sides of the mansion had two-story porches with metal lace-work railings.^[3] The imported Cordovan marble fireplace mantles varied in color.^[3][6] The library mantle was pink and grey.^[11] The drawing room mantle was white.^[11] The dining room mantle was pink with oxblood.^[11] Each of the eight bedrooms had different shadings.^[3] The interior doors were made of three inch thick mahogany.^[11] A curved stairway with fan shaped steps and a black walnut railing was in the rear of the central hall and connected the first, second and attic floors.^[11] A spiral staircase rose from the large center room of the attic to the cupola on top.^[7]

A two-story kitchen flanked a rear corner of the mansion.^[2] The grounds also contained a two-story carriage house made of brick.^[2]

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  First Floor Center Hall of Homewood Mansion (1936)
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  Rooms Across the Front of Homewood Mansion on the First Floor (1936)
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  Spiral Stairway (attic to cupola) in Homewood Mansion (1936)
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  Rear of Homewood Mansion (1936)

• / You Tube video with photos of Homewood
• Map of Natchez at Mississippi Department of Archives and History website shows Homewood Plantation at the top
• American Memory from the Library of Congress website in the Architecture topic has 18 images of Homewood mansion - some of which are floor plans
• Map showing the Balfour family's Issaquena County, Mississippi Plantation in the approximate center

31°34′36″N 91°22′13″W / 31.576563°N 91.370270°W / 31.576563; -91.370270