page_title: Beauvoir (Biloxi, Mississippi)
section_title: Damage assessment
hierarchical_section_title: Beauvoir (Biloxi, Mississippi) / History / Hurricane Katrina / Damage assessment
caption_attribution_description: English: Exterior of parlor windows. —Beauvoir in Biloxi, Mississippi. Post-restoration, following massive damage from Hurricane Katrina.
context_page_description: The Beauvoir estate, built in Biloxi, Mississippi, along the Gulf of Mexico, was the post-war home of the former President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis. The house and plantation have been designated as a National Historic Landmark, recognized and listed by the U.S. Department of the Interior and its National Park Service.
  The estate was purchased in 1873 by the planter Samuel Dorsey. After his death in 1875, his widow, Sarah Dorsey, learned that Davis was facing difficulties. She invited him to visit at the plantation and offered him a cottage near the main house, where he could live and work at his memoirs. He ended up living there the rest of his life with his wife, Varina Howell Davis, and his youngest daughter, Varina Anne Davis.
  Ill with cancer in 1878, Sarah Ellis Dorsey remade her will, bequeathing Beauvoir to Jefferson Davis and making Winnie the residuary legatee, inheriting after her father died. The three Davises lived at Beauvoir until former President Davis' death in 1889. Varina and Winnie moved to New York City in 1891.
  After the death of Winnie in 1898, her mother, Varina Howell Davis, inherited the plantation.
context_section_description: On August 29, 2005, the main building was severely damaged, losing its newly refurbished galleries (porches) and a section of its roof, but not destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, which hit the Biloxi-Gulfport area head-on. The Clarion-Ledger reported on August 31 that Beauvoir was “virtually demolished,” overstating the damage. The storm destroyed the Hayes Cottage, the Library Pavilion, a barracks replica, the Confederate Museum and the director's home.  The first floor of the Davis Presidential Library was gutted by the storm.  Approximately 35% of the collections were lost.
  Although the extensive damage from Hurricane Katrina has required a massive restoration project for Beauvoir, the publicity caused detailed U.S. Government photos of the building to become widely available, revealing some architectural details and part of the internal structure of the original construction.
  At the Beauvoir entranceway, above the door and left-side window, dentil molding appears along the lintel of the door and window. The internal construction of the building is also revealed, seen in exposed areas of the structure, such as the basement red-brick pillars, or the wooden wall frames, with wooden latticework backing the external plaster covering.  The external shell of Beauvoir was protected by six fireplaces that surround the core of the house. Of those six brick fireplaces reinforcing the outside walls, only one of six rooftop chimneys collapsed during the hurricane.  Five of the six fireplaces retained sufficient structural integrity to keep the walls of the building from falling away while under water.
  On the back, west wing of Beauvoir, behind a front-yard tree, the green storm shutters survived the floating debris that battered the entrance.  The shutters protected the glass panes despite the 24-foot (8-m) storm surge that submerged the area.  Whole sections of the Beauvoir home have remained intact to preserve many of the original construction details and windows (as seen in the photograph excerpts, at right).
caption: Beauvoir (After Katrina restoration), detail of front windows.
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