By Ben Hillyer & Lindsey Shelton

NATCHEZ — Two Natchez antebellum houses were recently awarded a total of more than $300,000 in state grant funding for repairs and restoration work.

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History awarded $103,455 to Auburn Antebellum Home and $209,707 to Magnolia Hall.

The funds for Auburn will go toward the repair of balconies, columns, gutter system, reglazing of windows and new paint. Auburn is owned by the City of Natchez but is operated by a volunteer nonprofit organization.

Auburn Antebellum Home President Clark Feiser said the group is grateful MDAH chose Auburn as a recipient.

“We are tickled that we got the grant,” Feiser said. “Even though it was less than what we asked for, we are pleased with what we did get.”

Auburn originally requested $300,000 in grant funds that would have waterproofed the entire house and made repairs to the front and back of the house.

“Our first priority will be the front balcony,” Feiser said. “The (amount of the grant) may get the front finished.”

Feiser said he hopes the grant money will go further than anticipated like it has on the previous grant Auburn received from MDAH to restore the house’s kitchen dependency.

“Maybe the same thing will happen with this project,” Feiser said.

In 2013, Auburn received a little more than $157,000 from MDAH, bringing the total funds awarded to more than $260,000.

Magnolia Hall was awarded $209,707 from MDAH for restoration of exterior millwork, masonry, stucco and plaster. Magnolia Hall was awarded the grant through the Natchez Garden Club’s nonprofit fundraising arm The Preservation Society of Ellicott Hill, which owns the house.

NGC project coordinator and capital campaign chair Helen Moss Smith said the grant funds would go to restoring the brownstone look on the exterior of the house.

“So Natchez can understand what a real brownstone looked like,” Smith said. “The building was truly all chocolate brown.”

When the work is completed, the columns of Magnolia Hall will also be brown.

“(It will be) very different from the white columned buildings to which we are accustomed,” Smith said.

Historic Natchez Foundation Executive Director assisted with the grant application and said the brownstone restoration is important because Magnolia Hall tells a story that is not told at some of the other local antebellum houses.

“In the late 19th century northeast, you were nobody if you didn’t live in a brownstone,” Miller said.

Other Natchez houses, including Elms Court and Melmont, had brownstone finishes at one point in the past, Miller said.

“This will be the only one that’s restored,” Miller said. “I think we can have a lot of fun with retelling that story to tourists and showing that Natchez knew what was going on in the northeast … and that (Magnolia Hall builder) Thomas Henderson was very much in touch with the taste-centers of the northeast and opted for a brownstone house.”

The grant funds will also go toward repairing windows, shutters, stucco and other work, Miller said.

The restoration work will come a few years after NGC installed a new roof thanks to money raised during a capital campaign. NGC also rebuilt six chimneys at Magnolia Hall.

“Our plans are to put the building back to the way it needs to be,” Smith said. “We are very optimistic about the future of Magnolia Hall.”

The MDAH funds were awarded through the Community Heritage Preservation Grant program, which requires a 20-percent cost match. Both Magnolia Hall and Auburn overmatched and provided a 25-percent match to obtain the grants.