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B.F. Liddon Home a.k.a. The Cat House
A piece of Corinth history sees renovations

New owners give renowned
landmark a makeover
Published Sunday, August 16, 2009
By Jebb Johnston
Staff Writer

One of downtown Corinth’s signature residences is getting a makeover as new owners settle into the B.F. Liddon home, which sat vacant for 45 years.
Casey Rutherford and Ricki Parker of Tupelo are the new owners of the home at the corner of Bunch and Webster. A Mississippi Landmark characterized by its castle-like towers and large Corinthian columns, the home has been christened “Caycedale Castle” by the new owners.
They are also embracing its common name by giving it a subtitle, “The Cat House.”
Rutherford said this is the first time the home has been outside the ownership of the Liddon family and its descendants since it was completed in 1907.
Rutherford and Parker, who manage rental properties and have now owned the home for a year, made an inquiry if it was for sale during last year’s estate sale. By the next week, they had closed the deal.
Rutherford said he grew up near Corinth and always admired the home.
The new owners enjoy the attention that the house gets from locals.
“We hear stories everywhere we go,” said Parker.
They say the house has also drawn some celebrity attention.
“The country star Kellie Pickler sent her booking agent here about three months ago to see if we would sell it to her,” he said.
They are living in the house part-time and have settled in for a long renovation, doing much of the work themselves.
“We have set a time frame of no longer than five years from when we bought it,” said Rutherford. “We’re hoping that it will be done before then.”
Thus far, two of the larger rooms are finished — the dining room and master bedroom.
Cleanup and essential repairs were the first order of business.
“The first thing we did last summer was clean out all of the stuff that had been left in here from the sale,” said Rutherford. “We had all of the slate removed and put on a new roof. The whole back side of it was rotted, and we had to replace all of the woodwork there.”
Added Parker, “The slate was so old that when they would hit it with a hammer, it would just bust like powder.”
Leaks had become a major problem. Buckets on the fourth floor caught some but not all of the rainwater.
Dormers were also repaired during the roof work.
Among other initial steps were removal of the boiler and radiators, a thorough plumbing upgrade with removal of all of the cast-iron pipes, and repair of the deteriorated ceiling on the porch.
Parker said they are striving to preserve the original integrity of the home as much as possible.
He said the home is well-built and structurally sound. Exterior walls are 24 inches thick with Alabama limestone on the outside. Three layers of brick are between the limestone and an interior mixture of mortar and cement.
“It’s structurally not going anywhere,” said Parker. “It will probably be here another hundred years.”
They plan to keep the natural color of the exterior stone but will incorporate some contrasting colors in the trim work.
The completed dining room features shades of mulberry with gold, and the original Tiffany chandelier remains. In the master bedroom, the tower corner is painted black with an overlay of gold finish. The original hardwood floors of these rooms have been meticulously cleaned and finished.
“This is what we’re hoping the whole house will look like when we’re through,” Parker said while showing off the dining room.
The first floor’s large room, which features a tile floor, is yet to see renovations except for reframing of the beveled glass windows that had been damaged by leaking water. Also, some of the old mortar has been removed from the wall.
This room contains the one antique piece remaining from the Liddon era — a grand piano that is said to have been shipped by steamboat from New York to New Orleans and then transported by buggy to the home.
The elevator has been removed from one of the towers so that the tower windows can be used again.
They plan to furnish the home with antiques throughout.
Parker, who was a florist in Pontotoc for 20 years, looks forward to spending time on the “sleep porch,” a window-lined, upper-level room on the back of the home that overlooks the rear lawn and the intersection of Cass and Bunch. In the days before electricity and air conditioning, it was a good place to spend summer nights.
“You could sit right here and see anything that goes on in Corinth,” he said. “I’m an outside person, so this room, when it’s finished, will be perfect for me.”
Pleasantly cool even in August, the full basement also stays warm during the winter, Parker said. It contains a well which formerly was the home’s source of water.
In the home’s rear lawn are a couple of structures that were literally used as cat houses.
“They had electricity, windows and doors,” said Parker. “They had heat in them for the cats for the wintertime.”
The separate building, originally a barn and carriage house, was used as a garage in later years.
The home boasts ceilings of 14 feet in height and is said to have been built by B.F. Liddon for about $10,000. The Corinthian columns, made from cypress, came from Amsterdam, N.Y., at a cost of about $500. Last year’s estate sale attracted hundreds of locals anxious to get a look inside the long-shuttered home. The sale included a wide variety of items, including antique toys.
In the future, Rutherford said the home may host activities such as wedding receptions in the ballroom.
And in keeping with the home’s storied past, a new pair of felines are calling the grounds their own.

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Back online by request ...
Landmark is opened to the public
Published Saturday, Julu 12, 2008
By Robert Blankenship / Jebb Johnston

The hallways, staircases and floors of a local historical landmark saw more action Friday morning than it likely has over the last half century.
After not being lived in for about 40 years, the castle-looking home at the corner of Webster and Bunch streets made up for its lack of visitors in recent years as the doors were open to the public for an estate tag sale.
Inside the home was room after room of old books, tools, magazines, toys, and all sorts of other interesting items that dated from the 1800s through the mid 1900s.
Friday morning, beginning at 7 a.m., antique seekers and collectors of odds and ends began browsing through what had been stored for years during an outside sale. Then, at 8 a.m., the doors opened and visitors got their first chance to see what awaited inside.
For some local residents, the estate sale provided an opportunity to see inside a home that has been closed to them for many years. According to Tula Clayton, owner of Clayton Estate Sales, the mystery behind what was in the house helped to make Friday morning's crowd even bigger.
Clayton said the sale generated about 300 visitors to the home by 10:30 a.m. Friday.
"People have been waiting years to get into this house and many of them took this opportunity to do just that," Clayton said.
As for the sale itself, Clayton said the most sought-after items, and the ones that sold fastest, was a collection of about 75 to 100 antique toys.
"The toys were all very interesting and have been stored in this house for many years," she said. "I've been doing this a lot of years and I have never even seen some of the toys that we had in this sale."
Most rooms in the house featured tables of items for sale. Beginning on the ground floor, visitors traveled through the living area, kitchen and dinning room.
The sale continued up to the second floor where several rooms were also filled with items. There was even more to browse through up another set of stairs into the attic.
According to Clayton, the home was built in 1907 by B.F. Liddon, a local businessman who had built several theaters. The home took about five years to build. The stones on the outside are all hand-cut and behind the stones is brick.
The house is said to have been built for about $10,000. Its large Corinthian columns on the front are made of cypress and came from Amsterdam, N.Y.The house was eventually passed down to Shirley Simmons about 40 years ago.
Clayton said while Simmons did not live in the house, she did not want to sell it either. Simmons passed away last November and the family decided recently it was time for the house to have new owners.
The house itself is not part of the estate tag sale.
Over the years that the house sat without a resident, the items inside remained stored, collecting dust ... and value.
"There wasn't one thing inside the house that wasn't collectible. There are books dating back to the mid-1800s. They had saved every newspaper, advertisement ... things we often throw away they kept so long that they actually have a high value," Clayton said.

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