FOR SALE 2 Historic Homes, 1820 & 1840, Moved to Create One!

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Welcome back to Preservation Travels with Lane and Kevin here at our restoration nation. Today we're bringing you two houses in one.

[00:00:24]Heat. Heat.

[00:00:59]Heat.

[00:01:04]Heat.

[00:02:37]Welcome back to Preservation Travels with Lane and Kevin. We're back in beautiful Natches, Mississippi. But the thing about this incredible property we're bringing you today, we're no more than about 3 minutes from Walmart and Walgreens, but we are in the middle of the country. This beautiful home sits on 5 acres of its own, but those five acres are nestled inside about 300 other acres that are privately owned. So, you are in the middle of the country, in the middle of town. So, welcome to Heckler Hall.

[00:03:03]Let me take you for a tour.

[00:03:12]Welcome to Heckler Hall. Now, this home is absolutely fascinating. Typically, as architectural historians, we do not like to see homes taken away from their original build site. That loses the context, but I'm a little bit of a radical when it comes to that idea. My feeling is if a home is going to be lost, the context of where it's built is no longer going to matter anyway. So, let's move the home and save it. And I'm standing inside of a property that has not one but two homes that were moved to this site. So this beautiful property is Heckler Hall. It was originally built in Rodney, Mississippi. Now, those of you who know about Mississippi have no doubt heard of Rodney. It is a complete ghost town. It is a ghost town in the truest sense of the word. It's very prone to flooding. And so we have a lot of incredible historic buildings there, but no residents anymore. So this main building, Heckler Hall, was moved from Rodney, Mississippi. Originally built around 1840 and relocated here. It's been incredibly and beautifully restored. So, let's take a look at some of its architectural features. So, before we get to architecture, I just I have to show you this. I'm such a history geek and anytime I walk into a home like this and I see something like this, I want to take it with me. I would never. We know I would never, but boy do I want to because I while I'm not 100% sure, I wouldn't be surprised at all if this little collection of artifacts wasn't found right here on the property.

[00:04:36]You see an entire assortment of Civil War era mini balls, buttons from officers uniforms, a cufflink, a buckle.

[00:04:46]This is an incredible archive to have here with the property that shows this property's amazing history.

[00:05:59]It's always such a joy to come into these incredible homes uh and see the homes themselves and the architectural details, but what a pleasure it is to see one that is so beautifully appointed. This home has been incredibly restored, perfectly done, just chef's kiss on that. The house doesn't have a lot of history, a lot of known history, and part of the reason for that is because it has been moved and so it's lost its historic context. It's very difficult to research.

[00:06:27]And this is the formal dining room. You can see from the mantle behind me, which is no doubt original, very simple in style. The Wayne Scott around the room, very simple in style. This was a country home. This was a simple home. But today, it feels incredibly elegant.

[00:08:57]So, obviously any home of this age is going to have evolved over time. And as an architectural historian, we're always looking for clues as to what has happened in the house, what is original, what has changed, what has evolved. And there are some amazing clues in this front hall that don't really lead us to any answers, though. So, let's take a look at this. This is obviously the stopping point of an original wall. Very obviously. But then, where did it go?

[00:09:24]What happened behind this area? Because if you swing around here and you see this incredibly beautiful early frontest piece with side lights, there is gorgeous early Wescott that runs just the perimeter of this back hall. It's not anywhere else past this wall. And so what how did these spaces function? What was the look of this when the home was built in 1840?

[00:09:50]And unfortunately, because we have so little history, we probably won't ever know definitively.

[00:10:35]Well, now we're going to take a little journey through time. We're going to leave the 1840s house that was originally built in Rodney, Mississippi, and we're going to go into an 1820s home originally from Church Hill. Come with me.

[00:11:20]So this is Lock Hill. This is an 1820s home that was originally in Church Hill, Mississippi. So to me, this is an absolutely fascinating architectural little capsule. You have three national historic districts recognized in one property. You have Rodney, Mississippi.

[00:11:39]You have Church Hill, Mississippi, and they're all now located in Nachis, Mississippi. So, it's this little architectural archive in one building.

[00:11:46]Again, not something that's really um smiled upon by the National Register or the National Park Service, but these beautiful buildings were saved and conserved for future generations to enjoy. And I'm so glad they're here.

[00:12:01]Let's take a look at some of the elements in this room.

[00:12:04]Some of the highest style trim in the entire home is on what is now the back door. Look at the incredible door surround here. Um, and on the other side is an amazing frontest piece with the transom and the sidelight. The trim here reminds me, puts me very much in mind of the mantel piece that's at Propinquy.

[00:12:21]Remember, this is a much earlier space, a much earlier room. This is about 1820s. This would have been the front door of Lock Hill, which is the home we're in now. So, let's go out the back door and look at the front door of Lock Hill. Come with me.

[00:12:42]The frontest piece behind me is absolutely beautiful and it is a perfect example of Greek Revival architecture.

[00:12:48]But more than likely, Lock Hill was not Greek Revival in design when it was first built in the 1820s. We don't see Greek Revival architecture really making its foray into the United States until a little bit later. A lot of you viewers get very confused when I say that Greek revival architecture didn't become popular until after 1829 when Greece won its war of independence from the Ottoman Empire. That's because you get it confused and like to lecture me about how classical architecture had been here for generations. And that's correct.

[00:13:15]That's because classical architecture or neocclassical architecture was influenced by Roman architectural styles. So we get that period first and then we get Greek revival after that war for independence. Anyway, what we see here is very traditional Greek revival, but this was probably added after the construction of Lock Hill. This is probably not original. It's a little too early. How do we know this house is a little earlier? One of the great clues are the windows. These are 9 over9 windows. And if you've been here any length of time, you know the earlier the window, the more panes of glass because it was very difficult and therefore very expensive to make larger panes of glass.

[00:13:55]And so as technology advances, we see the panes in the windows getting larger and larger. In a true Greek revival period home, so 1830 to 185960, you're probably going to see 6 over6, not 9 over9. These are also jib doors.

[00:14:13]And you know, I love a good jib door.

[00:14:36]One of the great additions to this home is a staircase and the bedrooms upstairs. So, let's go take a look at these wonderful cozy hidden nook spaces we have up here on the second floor.

[00:15:58]Thank you for joining us on Preservation Travels with Lane and Kevin here at our restoration nation. We hope you've enjoyed this look at both Heckler Hall and Lock Hill. This is an absolutely spectacular property located, as you can see, on incredible grounds. Now, as always, we will remind you, we're not real estate agents. We do not represent or guarantee this home in any way.

[00:16:19]However, she is about to be for sale.

[00:16:21]She may not even be on Zillow yet by the time this video comes out. But if you are interested, we're going to put a link in the description below, give you direct access to that realtor, and you can let us know whether or not you're going to become the next stewards of beautiful Heckler Hall here in Nachas, Mississippi. We'll see you next time on Preservation Travels with Lane and Kevin.