Beauvoir

The house was built in the 1850s by a Mississippi planter and named Beauvoir, a French phrase meaning beautiful view, for its outlook over the Mississippi Sound. Jefferson Davis, the only president of the Confederate States and afterward a private citizen, came here in 1877 and made it his home for the last dozen years of his life, writing his lengthy memoir of the war on the grounds.

After Davis died in 1889, his widow Varina eventually sold the estate on the condition that it serve as a home for aging Confederate veterans and their families, and for decades it operated as just that. Today Beauvoir is preserved as a house museum. It presents the life of Davis and the era of the Civil War, a chapter Americans continue to reckon with, and it does so on the very ground where he spent his final years.

Beauvoir is a textbook Gulf Coast raised cottage, lifted a full story off the ground on brick piers to let storm surge and floodwater pass beneath, with a wide central hall and doors and windows lined up to pull a cross breeze through the rooms. Deep shaded porches wrap the front, and tall ceilings let the heat rise, all of it designed long before air conditioning to make a subtropical summer bearable.

That design was tested to its limits. In 2005 Hurricane Katrina drove a massive storm surge across this coast and gutted Beauvoir, destroying outbuildings and flooding the main house. The site was closed for years and rebuilt with painstaking care, salvaging original materials where possible. The Beauvoir you visit today is in large part a restoration, a monument to the coast's habit of losing its landmarks and building them back.

Some of the most striking things at Beauvoir are older than the house. Great live oaks, low and spreading, their limbs hung with Spanish moss, shade the grounds and have stood through generation after generation of storms. Live oaks are famously wind-resistant, and these survivors are as much a part of the coast's identity as the beaches.

The estate includes gardens, a small cemetery, and a memorial to Confederate soldiers, along with walking paths among the trees. Facing the water across Beach Boulevard, it offers the beautiful view its name promises, a broad flat horizon of sand, sound, and sky that has drawn people to this stretch of coast for centuries.

The Mississippi Sound in front of Beauvoir is a shallow, warm arm of the Gulf sheltered by a chain of barrier islands offshore. Brown pelicans glide low over the water, laughing gulls and terns work the shallows, and dolphins are often seen from the beach and the boats that run out to the islands. The man-made beach here is one of the longest in the country.

Spring and fall are the finest seasons on the coast, warm and breezy with easier humidity. Summer is hot, sticky, and the heart of hurricane season, which runs into the fall and shapes life all along this shore. Winter is mild and quiet, a pleasant time to walk the grounds under the oaks with the crowds gone.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is a place we chose through independent editorial review, never a paid placement.

Beauvoir, in Biloxi on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, is a historic antebellum estate best known as the last home of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, preserved as a house museum and National Historic Landmark. The graceful raised cottage-style mansion, overlooking the Gulf, was where Davis spent his final years, and the site preserves the historic home, grounds, and a presidential library, interpreting a complex and painful period of American history, including the Confederacy, the Civil War, and, importantly, the enslaved people connected to the era. Its architecture and history make it a significant, if difficult, destination. A historic and thought-provoking estate, it educates visitors. With its history, Beauvoir offers a compelling destination in Mississippi.

Beauvoir is a historic Gulf Coast estate best known as the last home of Jefferson Davis, who had been president of the Confederacy during the Civil War, and where he lived his final years and wrote. As a site tied to the Confederacy and the Civil War, its history is complex and painful, bound up with slavery, the war fought over it, and the enslaved people whose labor was part of the era, and a full understanding requires reckoning with this difficult history. The site preserves the home and interprets this period. Approaching Beauvoir with awareness of this full and difficult history deepens a visit in Mississippi.

You can tour the historic raised-cottage mansion overlooking the Gulf, see period furnishings, explore the grounds and a presidential library, and learn about Jefferson Davis, the Civil War era, and this complex chapter of history. The historic home, the Gulf-front grounds, the library, and the interpretation of a difficult period are the draws, offering a significant historical experience. Approaching the site's history, including the era's slavery and the enslaved people connected to it, with reflection is important. With its history, Beauvoir offers a rewarding visit in Biloxi, Mississippi.

The milder months of fall through spring are the most comfortable for touring the house and Gulf-front grounds in Mississippi's climate, avoiding the intense summer heat and humidity, while the historic home can be enjoyed in various seasons. Because hours and tours can vary, checking current information before you go is wise. For the most comfortable visit, aim for fall through spring at Beauvoir in Mississippi.

Beauvoir is in Biloxi on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, within reach of the Biloxi Lighthouse, the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art, the Biloxi beachfront, Ship Island and the Gulf Islands National Seashore, and the other attractions of the Gulf Coast. That makes Beauvoir a compelling stop to combine with the Biloxi Lighthouse and the other attractions of the Mississippi Gulf Coast on a visit to the state.