Classic Natchez

Book excerpt: Classic Natchez is the fourth in a series of books about significant Southern cities. By bringing together thought-provoking essays, beautiful contemporary color photographs, and informative maps and illustrations, the editors reveal the essence of each city through its architecture. In this volume, Randolph Delehanty presents the captivating and ironic history of Natchez, identifying the architectural evidence of each era and relating it to the social and economic pulses that created it. An entertaining time line illustrated with archival photographs, maps, panoramas, and floor plans takes the reader from the earliest native habitations, through the construction boom of the cotton era, to the modern-day efforts to preserve this precious legacy. As the introduction and time line give the architecture historical perspective, a portfolio of forty-three landmark Natchez homes gives it life, with stories of Natchez's celebrated nineteenth-century society woven into the lives and lifestyles of modern Natchezians. The portfolio offers a colorful journey through time - the sweet serenity of Spanish-era Hope Farm, to the nearly unbelievable fantasy of Haller Nutt's suburban Longwood, and ending with a bluff-top modern homage to a Mississippi planter's cottage.