Built in 1840. Standing still.

Constructed as a modest one-and-a-half storey Greek Revival townhouse for Samuel and Jane Newman, purchased for $1,000. One mile from this address, the Forks of the Road — the second-largest slave market in America — was at its peak. The cotton wealth that built every mansion in this city came from the labor of 14,000 enslaved people who made up sixty percent of this county. Newman sold the house in 1853 when he relocated to New Orleans.

Passed through Matilda Metcalf, Jacob Ullman, Bettie Jacobs, and finally the Natchez Elks Lodge — each owner a thread in the city's long ledger.

Union gunboats shelled Natchez from the river. The house survived. Rosalie Beekman, age seven, did not — the only civilian killed. We say her name because the cost is part of the record.

The Elks hired William Stientenroth to enlarge the house. A full second floor was added, four massive columns raised, the front pediment built. Where a swimming pool once stood, the courtyard now sits.

Poole Investments purchased the building from the Elks and renovated it to house VIP guests from the Eola Hotel across the street — period antique furnishings, restored guest rooms, a working hotel once again.

A February storm brought 100+ mph winds over the bluff. Two columns collapsed. Forty-eight of fifty windows shattered. The house closed for seven months, then re-opened.

Under new Black ownership, restored as believed to be the largest Black-owned antebellum mansion hotel in America. The people this city was built on the backs of — whose ancestors' labor financed these walls — now own this house and are bringing it back. That is the point of all of it.