For the love of Waverley

Couple works to restore 1852 Mansion in West Point for a 21st century family

If the cliche “labor of love” didn’t already exist, it would have to be invented for Charlie Stephenson.

Stephenson and his wife, Dana, purchased Waverley Mansion in West Point nearly three years ago, but the renovations designed to make it livable for their family and guests are still months from completion.

“We’ve upgraded the electrical and converted some of the small closets on the second level into bathrooms so our guests have a place to freshen up,” Stephenson said while waiting for a landscaper on a recent afternoon. “We added a master bathroom and closets off to the side that connect to the original master bedroom.”

That’s just the beginning. Turning an architectural gem built for another era into a home for a 21st-century family, while maintaining the character of the place requires careful planning and even more careful execution.

The house has two floors of living space off of a main hall that soars four stories, topped by a cupola with 16 windows. The first floor is home to a parlor, dining room, master bedroom and library, while the second floor includes four bedrooms. The third floor is an attic.

“We’re going to keep the original house very true to its nature,” he said. “We’re going to continue to have a formal dining room, the library, the parlor, the master bedroom downstairs and the bedrooms up. Rather than turn one of those into a den, a place to watch a ball game or kind of relax, we elected to tear off the kitchen that had been added in the 1930s — it wasn’t original to the house — and replace it with a larger structure that has a den, kitchen area and outdoor living area so that there’s a place for the grandkids to come and watch TV and enjoy some family time.

“Then on this side of the house — you have to remember when the house was built, there was no running water, so there were no bathrooms inside the house — we’ve put in a geothermal heat and air system. The house has never had any heat and air before, so that should help preserve the plaster and prevent some of the cracking and mildew problems.”

But despite all of the additions, changes and modern conveniences, the house will continue to look mostly as it did when Col. George Young’s home was completed in 1852. The lawyer and former Georgia legislator purchased land on the west bank of the Tombigbee River in 1835, and his family and their 25 slaves lived there during the mansion’s construction.

By the time the building was finished, Young had amassed more than 2,000 acres of land and roughly 120 slaves. Col. Young would send cotton down the Tombigbee River to Mobile to market, waiting for the right time of year for navigation in the days before the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway. Slave cabins were located east of the mansion. Most slaves stayed on after the Civil War, tearing down the cabins and building small homes across the road.

The plantation included gardens, orchards and livestock and maintained a kiln, cotton gin, ice house and pool with a bathhouse. In addition, there was a carriage house, a barn and a guesthouse, as well as woolen, lumber, flour and grist mills. But most of the buildings are long gone, and the surrounding fields have long since been taken over by woods, making the house somewhat tricky to find. But when Stephenson saw it … it was, to use another cliche, love at first sight.

“We started out looking for a home in Starkville, and the Realtor said, ‘Not sure if you’ll like this or not, but there’s a house coming up for sale in West Point,’” said Stephenson, a resident of Tulsa but a Mississippi native who still has family in Meridian. “I knew of Waverley of course, growing up in Mississippi, but we came over, looked at it and fell in love with it. And made a deal to purchase it from the estate of Mr. Snow.”

That would be Robert Snow, who basically rescued Waverley from 50 years of neglect. After Col. Young died, two of his brothers — Val and Billy — lived in the house, according to tour guide-turned-gardener Jimmy Denning. Val was into fox hunting and had a kennel with 50 dogs where the pond now is, while Billy was a gambler who would use the main hall for poker games and conducted cockfights in the front yard.

Billy’s death in 1913 left the house vacant.

“By the 1930s, it had become a hangout spot for kids,” Denning said. “High school boys would bring their girlfriends out on dates; college boys from Mississippi State would have fraternity initiations. Thousands of names and initials were carved in the plaster walls.”

Surprisingly, much of the mansion was in good condition when Snow and his wife, Donna, purchased it in 1962, buying it, like Stephenson, quickly after seeing it.

“A traveling salesman walked into their antique shop (the Snows were from Philadelphia, Mississippi) and told them about this beautiful house in the woods,” as Denning tells the story. “Mr. Snow was so curious he decided to take the next day off of work and drove up here 90 miles looking for it.

“One look at the balconies and staircases in the hall, and he said he just had to buy the place. … The Snows moved in and began a 27-year restoration, and he lived there until March 2017 when he died at 91. I worked for him for over 10 years. He was a sweet old man.”

Denning now works for Stephenson, who said the long restoration project has not dimmed his enthusiasm for Waverley.

“I can promise you that,” he said. “I think everything has worked out in a very positive way.”

Much of the work has been completed.

“Right now the inside of the house, all of the plaster work has been refurbished,” Stephenson said. “That took over a year. The wiring has been upgraded.”

Roof decking for an original portion of the house was used for a custom ceiling in an addition.

While the bulk of the work is behind them — Darwin Holliman Construction of Columbus is the general contractor — much of what visitors actually will see remains a work in progress.

“Each individual window sash is now being restored; we’ll finish that by the end of October,” Stephenson said. “Refinishing all of the floors, a lot of painting left to do, a lot of trim work left to do.”

All of that has brought plenty of workers to Waverley, with Holliman having a crew of six or seven along with subcontractors for specific jobs that often brought 20 or 30 more workers to the site.

But when all of them are done, Waverley will be home to the Stephensons. And make no mistake, despite living for 30 years in Oklahoma, Mississippi is home.

“We grew up in Mississippi, in Meridian,” he said. “I have become more involved with Mississippi State. We planned to retire in Oklahoma, but as we’ve spent more and more time here, we enjoy participating in things at State, and we just decided to retire back here instead of Oklahoma.”

His father’s side of the family is from Columbus, and Stephenson said it’s been good to get reacquainted with some of them. And his mom?

“Mother served as a hostess at the Waverley 50 or 60 years ago, whenever it was,” he said. “We actually still have the Pilgrimage dress that she used at that time.”

The mansion has seen a lot in 170 years. It didn’t suffer during the Civil War, although Col. Young’s six sons served in the rebel army.

The view from the front door of Waverley. Plaster has been restored throughout the house.

“Sure, we’ll have tours,” Stephenson said. “We look forward to sharing it with other people. We’ve got a following of almost 3,000 people on the ‘Memories of Waverley Mansion’ Facebook page. I think it was half that when we bought the house.”

Around that time, the landscaping — the final piece of the restoration puzzle — will be done. The grounds include an enormous magnolia tree estimated to be more than 250 years old. The walkway from the front gate to the porch takes visitors right past the tree and one of its presumed offspring. But the grounds offer just a hint of the 19th-century grandeur behind the door, and Stephenson is eager to show it off.

“They’ve had events here in the past,” he said. “First thing we want to do is move in and get settled, and that will be the first quarter of next year.”

For safety reasons, Waverley is not currently open to visitors. It is expected to reopen early in 2022. For information, visit the Waverley Plantation Mansion or Memories of Waverley Mansion Facebook pages or call 662-494-1399.

STORY BY TOM RYSINSKI

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