Architecture and Renovations

Architecture and Renovations. . What you see here is a reconstruction of the 1852 house built by the Cokers. Efforts to fully restore the original house were not successful. In order to save the structure, the house was dismantled and the salvaged materials were used in the rebuilding., The Coker House was built in the vernacular Greek Revival architectural style used in many planters' houses and town houses in the Deep South. The floor plan features a wide center hall with two matching rooms on either side. The facade has an attached portico supported by four squared columns with Greek Revival detailing. , The kitchen and dining room was located in a single outbuilding immediately behind the house to safeguard the house from fire. It was removed in the 1960s. , Preservation , In 1933 Maude Coker Thomas sold the house and property to Alfred Gervin who lived here with his family for the next thirty years. Fred Adams of Cal-Maine Foods purchased the property in 1963 and later donated the house to the Jackson Civil War Round Table, a nonprofit history and preservation organization. , Unable to raise sufficient funds for a complete restoration, the Round Table deeded the house to the State of Mississippi in 2000. , "[Nestled] in a wilderness of flowers and shrubbery and large forest trees stood the comfortable Coker house, with its large airy hall running from end to end," recalled an Ohio infantryman. "It stood on brick pillars, some three feet or more above the ground, allowing a free circulation of air, a very necessary thing in that climate."