Home With a History

A historic College Hill home that’s been in the same family for 90 years has been given new life to accommodate modern living and future generations.

Written by Eugene Stockstill | Photos by Joe Worthem

FoxShaw, the renovated house in Lafayette County where Leigh Shaw Fox and her husband, Chip, plan to retire one day, has a rich, old history.

It was once a part of the old North Mississippi College’s dairy barn, which was located on a site that also included a dormitory, a mule barn, a potato house and an orchard. Today, the house stands as an homage to a bygone era.

“It’s a recycled house,” Fox said. “It’s been a labor of love.”

The name Shaw has been connected to Lafayette County for six generations, and “probably the entire Shaw family were early settlers,” Fox said. They were among the Presbyterians who settled in north Mississippi in the 1830s and founded College Hill, one of Lafayette’s first settlements. Those first residents built a school and a church.

When Fox’s grandparents, Parham and Floyce Shaw, moved into the house at 310 County

Road 102 in 1936, it had no electricity or indoor plumbing. They made numerous upgrades and moved the kitchen to the north side. It became the property of Chip and Leigh Fox in 2018, and the next year, they started planning renovations.

“We were the brilliant people who renovated during COVID,” she said. “It’s a historic family home. It’s always been a really tender place. My dad grew up here. This is where we had Sunday lunch. We went to church at College Hill Pres. This is where we knew we wanted to retire. This is a generational house.”

The old country residence is made of tumbled brick and flagstone and is trimmed with cedar.

The original residence had three bedrooms and one bathroom. After the renovation was completed, it had four bedrooms and four-and-a-half bathrooms. Most of the living space is downstairs, with an office and a guest suite upstairs.

Fox said she and her husband were involved on an almost daily basis with Chad Russom and his crews at Russom Construction.

Fox designed parts of the renovated house, too.

“I had a vision of what I wanted to stay the same,” she said.

For instance, an old barn on the property could not be saved, “so we saved the wood and incorporated it into the house,” she said. That old wood has been incorporated into the ceilings, entryway and porch. The focus for Fox was maintaining the character of the original residence, while making enough changes to transform it into a more comfortable living area.

“It’s bringing the old into the new,” she said. “This project touched my soul.”

Interior designer Joe Rankin described the house’s updated ambiance as “sophisticated, casual elegance,” a space that “has the warmth of a cozy cottage but the spaciousness of a grand house.”

The original wood floors were renovated. Bricks from three old fireplaces were used to make the new fireplace in the great room. The old eat-in kitchen was upgraded with a new Wolf range and hood, among other items, but, Fox said, “it’s the same space. We’re cooking in the same space that Grandmother cooked for us.”

Ceiling light fixtures from the old living and dining rooms are now sconces in the new powder room. Beams in the foyer, great room and used for walls came from the old mule barn. Old hickory walls, pine floors and wood collected by her father became hand-hewn wood gallery walls and accent tables. One room, which was a part of the original house, is a total of eight feet tall from floor to ceiling.

One of Fox’s favorite touches is that the vanities in the powder room were once the old dining room’s buffet.

“It’s from my dad’s aunt,” she said. “We wanted it to stay here.”

Fox’s favorite room in the house? That’s a tough question, but she defaults to what used to be the old dining room but now functions as a kind of sitting room.

“It’s the most inviting room in the house,” she said. (It’s featured on the page 40, with cedar ceilings, a fireplace and a full bar.) “Everyone that comes here, this is where they wind up.”

The front porch is another special place, harkening to old gatherings and making possible new ones. A separate screened porch replicates a similar one found at another old Shaw house.

The house owned by the Foxes has been for many years the site of numerous College Hill gatherings: Prayer meetings, sewing circles, Sunday lunches, family reunions and, of course, the making of beloved Brunswick stew. 

“Last June, the Shaw family reunion was held at the College Hill Community Center and here,” Fox said, and it made her tear up when she realized her grandchildren were playing in the same house where her Aunt Jane had played 90 years before. “This is why we did it.”

The house will be far more than a retirement hideaway for the two of them, she said.

“It’s as much for the future.”