Amid great elm trees and sturdy liveoaks is a wide, rambling house, its galleries bannistered with graceful iron grill encircling three sides of the structure. This is “Elms”, it is the home of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Kellogg. It is a close neighbor of the “Greenleaves” estate.

Elms was for a long time known as “the old Drake home”. Its intricate rambling porticos, unusual stairway, and beautiful gardens came to the Kelloggs by fortunate inheritance. Mrs. Kellogg is a direct descendant of the Drake family. Benjamin Drake was president of Elizabeth College, which has the distinction of being the first college in the United States to permit the teaching of branches of higher education to women.

With the home and its acres of lovely gardens Mrs. Kellogg inherited a house filled with rare antique rosewood furniture.

The main building of Elms, a two-and-a-half-story structure, was built in the late 1700’s. The exact date is not disclosed by available old records. As the property passed from descendant to descendant rooms have been added.

A striking feature of the house is a lacy wrought-iron stairway unlike any other in all America and believed to have been imported from Portugal. The stairway is built in a corridor, and is in harmony with the generous display of dainty, hand-turned work around the outer galleries.

Ceilings are low and give Spanish atmosphere to the architecture.

A series of old call bells, each with a different tone to indicate the location, are still in use in the various rooms.

The famous gardens in the rear have been reclaimed by the present mistress of Elms. Winding walks lead along flower beds of old-fashioned petunias, brilliant verbenas, phlox, roses and azaleas, edged with prim cut boxwood, while giant yuccas stand stiff as formal guards with white plumed headdress.

A great part of the original Elms estate has been sold, and today one of Natchez’ modern school buildings stands across the street, giving the children of this school a daily picture lesson of home and life of the proud Old South.