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Landmark Coast Structure Restored
The restored Charnley-Norwood Home in June 2013. The interior features curly yellow pine.
Significant Design By Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright
A nationally significant property on the Mississippi Gulf Coast that was badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina has been restored through the efforts of MDAH, the federal government, and many volunteer groups and individuals. The nineteenth-century Charnley-Norwood House is associated with two of the United States’ most influential architects, Chicago’s Louis Sullivan—“the father of the skyscraper”—and his then-draftsman Frank Lloyd Wright—the self-styled “greatest architect of all time.”
In 1890 the firm of Adler and Sullivan designed two vacation cottages in Ocean Springs for Sullivan and Chicago timber magnate James Chamley.
Rather than vertically oriented Victorian structures with rigidly defined rooms, Sullivan’s innovative houses were simple structures that emphasized the horizontal line. Spaces flowed one into another in the T-shaped plan, and the many windows minimized the distinction between indoors and out. “The design in many ways heralded the low, open-floorplan modern houses that would come to dominate the twentieth century,” said Kenneth
H.	P’Pool, deputy state historic preservation officer.
Regionally harvested yellow pine was used to frame the house and for the walls, floors, and ceilings, while the outside was clad in cypress shingle siding. Sullivan did not limit himself to the main houses on the property; he also designed an octagonal guest cottage, stable, carriage house, a two-tiered fishing pier, and even a doghouse in matching style to the house.
What exact roles Sullivan and
Wright played is impossible to determine. In his autobiography Sullivan claimed to have sketched the plans during his initial trip to Ocean Springs in March of 1890. Wright claimed credit for the homes in his book Genius and the Mobocracy. Regardless of each man’s particular contributions, what is certain is that the Charnley-Norwood House is a highly significant early collaboration between these two giants of American architecture.
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina completely destroyed the Sullivan house. Next door the Charnley-Norwood House was washed off its foundations. Floodwaters toppled two chimneys and lifted the guest cottage, also washing away its foundation piers.
Architectural and engineering professionals from across the state and nation recognized the significance of the cottage and rallied to save it. Volunteers salvaged much of the debris from the wreckage and cataloged the pieces for reinstallation in the house. Teams managed to
stabilize the house, but much work remained to be done.
A federal Coastal Impact Assistance Program grant allowed the property to be purchased by the State of Mississippi in
2011,	and funds from the federal Hurricane Relief Grant Program for Historic Preservation made possible the restoration.
“A house of this pedigree is rare enough anywhere, but to have this house that is a precursor to Modern American domestic architecture, and associated with both Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, is a treasure beyond measure,” said Oxford architect Tom Howorth.
“Although overseen by MDAH, the saving of the
Charnley-Norwood House would not have been possible without th£ generous assistance of several groups, including the Association for Preservation Technology, National Trust for Historic Preservation, The Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy, National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers, Mississippi Heritage Trust, and Savannah College of Art and Design,” said P’Pool.*
The Department of Marine Resources, MDAH, the College of Architecture, Art, and Design at Mississippi State University, and the City of Ocean Springs are planning ways to utilize the site for education and heritage tourism.