William Johnson House and Fort Rosalie
Natchez, Mississippi
JKOA is providing architectural and engineering services for schematic design, design development, and construction documents to repair/replace structural components and address ABAAS accessibility issues at the William Johnson House and McCallum House, as well as address ABAAS accessibility issues at the Stietenroth House and Log Cabin at Ft. Rosalie, at Natchez National Historical Park (NATC) in Natchez, MS.
Porch Repair and Replacement
The William Johnson House interprets the life of a free man of color and famed diarist of the antebellum South. It comprises three structures: the 1841 William Johnson House, the adjacent McCallum House, and an 1890s brick kitchen.
Due to damage from rainwater, the wood porches and stairs across the rear of the houses are unsafe to use, with exposed and rotting beams, buckling wood, missing balusters, and movement at stair landings. Accessibility to upstairs museum space is provided by an exterior lift; however, these structural issues have made it unusable.
The William Johnson brick kitchen building suffers from moisture issues and rising damp, requiring treatment to the masonry exterior, the first-floor plaster interior, and the interior wood floor, as well as to the surrounding ground. The kitchen building also suffers from moisture-related deterioration at the one-story front porch.
Following a detailed survey and condition assessment, JKOA is designing the repair and restoration of the porches and stairs, as well as gutters and downspouts, to provide a long-term solution to this chronic problem.
Accessibility Issues
Though the Johnson House has an exterior lift (currently out of service) to take visitors to the upper exhibit floor, there is no universal access to the kitchen building for visitors and employees, even at the first-floor level. The park’s interpretive plan calls for an exhibit space to be located in the downstairs kitchen area.
The nearby Fort Rosalie is the site of a 1716 fortification associated with early French settlement on the Mississippi River. Two historic structures are currently located on the seven-acre site, the 19th-century Stietenroth House and a 1940 Log Cabin that served as a gift shop for an early tourism recreation of the fort. Neither of these historic buildings has universal accessibility for employees or visitors.
Following a detailed survey, JKOA is designing universal access to the William Johnson House kitchen dependency, the Stietenroth House, and the Log Cabin in compliance with the Federal government’s Architectural Barriers Act Accessibility Standard (ABAAS).
Project services
Architecture
Historic preservation
Condition assessment
Structural engineering
Civil engineering
Landscape architecture
Universal accessibility
Cost estimating