The Tennessee Williams Home and Welcome Center is on summer vacation. Restorations are ongoing, both inside and outside, to preserve the home.
Nancy Carpenter, CEO of the Columbus Cultural Heritage Foundation, said work started on April 15 and will be completed by the end of August. The home is closed to visitors during the restoration, she said.
Carpenter said the home needed restorations both due to its age and its popularity, since the last round of renovations to the property happened in 2010.
“It’s been 14 years and look around at the houses that are (from) … 1830, 1850, even 1900, and those homes do not have 10,000 people a year that are going through the homes,” Carpenter said.
The carpenter gothic style house is the childhood home of Tennessee Williams. It was built in 1876 and was originally a rectory for St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.
Michael Taylor with PryorMorrow, the principal architect on the project, wrote in an email to The Dispatch that exterior renovations include replacing rotting wood on the exterior of the building and the front porch, repainting the exterior and raising and stabilizing the northeast corner of the home.
Interior renovations include repairing cracked interior plaster, cracked ceilings and painting, Taylor said. The project should cost a little more than $195,000, barring unforeseen issues, he said.
“Second floor interior work is 100% complete,” Taylor said. “First floor interior work 85% complete. The exterior painting and repair should begin this week.”
CCHF received a $35,000 grant from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History for the front porch and the columns around the porch a few years ago, Carpenter said, but the project was put on hold when more necessary repairs came to light.
CCHF later received a $20,000 grant from Mississippi Hills Heritage Area, along with the Community Heritage Preservation Grant from MDAH. The CHPG grant is a $158,000 competitive grant used for the rehabilitation of historic structures throughout the state with a 20% match, which Carpenter said the City of Columbus and Visit Columbus are both contributing toward.
Carpenter said once the restoration is complete, the Tennessee Williams Home and Welcome Center will host an open house for the public to celebrate the restoration. With the renovation, she is hopeful that the home can provide new events such as showcasing local musical talent on the front porch and maybe even a movie night on the front lawn.
“Hopefully, the work that’s being done now will last for many years to come,” Carpenter said. “It will far outlive me.”
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