- Rowan Oak
Infobox_nrhp | name =William Faulkner House
nrhp_type =nhl
caption = Rowan Oak
location= Old Taylor Road,Oxford, Mississippi
locmapin = Mississippi
area =
built =1844
architect= Col. Robert Sheegog
architecture= Greek Revival
designated=May 23 ,1968 cite web|url=http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=785&ResourceType=Building
title=William Faulkner House |accessdate=2007-10-25|work=National Historic Landmark summary listing|publisher=National Park Service]
added =May 23 ,1968 cite web|url=http://www.nr.nps.gov/|title=National Register Information System|date=2007-01-23|work=National Register of Historic Places|publisher=National Park Service]
governing_body = State
refnum=68000028Rowan Oak, also known as William Faulkner House, is
William Faulkner 's former home inOxford, Mississippi . It is a primitiveGreek Revival house built in the 1840s by Robert Sheegog. Faulkner purchased the house when it was in disrepair in the 1930s and did much of the renovations himself. Other renovations were done in the 1950s. The house sits on 4 landscaped and twenty nine acres of largely wooded property known as Bailey's Woods. One of its more famous features is the outline of Faulkner's Pulitzer-prize winning novel "A Fable", penciled in graphite and red on the plaster wall of his study. Though the "rowan oak" is a mythical tree, the grounds and surrounding woods of Rowan Oak contain hundreds of species of native Mississippi plants, most of which date back to antebellum times. The alley of cedars that lines the driveway was common in the 1800s. The studs of the house are 4"x4" square cypress; they were hand-hewn. Faulkner drew much inspiration for his treatment of multi-layered Time from Rowan Oak, where past and future seemed to inhabit the present.In 1972, his daughter, Jill Faulkner Summers, sold the house to the
University of Mississippi . The University maintains the home in order to promote Faulkner's literary heritage. Tours are available. The home has been visited by such writers asJohn Updike ,Czeslaw Milosz ,Charles Simic ,Richard Ford ,James Lee Burke ,Bei Dao , Charles Wright,Scott Baio ,Charles Frazier ,Alice Walker , theCoen brothers ,Bobbie Ann Mason , and others. WriterMark Richard once repaired a faulty doorknob on the French door to Faulkner's study.Rowan Oak was declared a
National Historic Landmark in 1968.citation|title=PDFlink| [http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Text/68000028.pdf National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: William Faulkner Home, Rowan Oak] |596 KiB |date=March 30 ,1976 |author=Polly M. Rettig and John D. McDermott |publisher=National Park Service and PDFlink| [http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Photos/68000028.pdf Accompanying 9 photos, exterior and interior, undated.] |1.22 MiB ]After its most recent renovations, some of which were funded by part-time Oxford resident and
Ole Miss law school alumnus,John Grisham , Rowan Oak was rededicated onMay 1 ,2005 .The current curator of Rowan Oak is William Griffith. Past curators include the novelists
Howard Bahr andCynthia Shearer .The address for the house was once 719 Garfield Road in Oxford, however, the road changed names in the 1980s. The road the house is located on is now called Old Taylor Road. It is best to get directions from the [official Rowan Oak website] listed as the first external link below.
References
External links
* [http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/u_museum/rowan_oak/interactive.html University of Mississippi Museums Page (includes visitor information on Rowan Oak)]
* [http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/u_museum/rowan_oak/interactive.html Inside Rowan Oak: Interactive Layout of Rowan Oak, With Close-Ups of a Novel Draft that Faulkner Wrote on His Office Wall]
* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/maudnewton/771561795/in/set-72157600752272620 A Photo Tour of Rowan Oak, With Commentary]
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