Connect with us
[the_ad_placement id="manual-placement"] [the_ad_placement id="obituaries"]

News

Mississippi’s most expensive house burns

Published

on

The Monroe House in Pass Christian before the fire. All photos from Realtor.com.

A sprawling 15-bedroom Pass Christian mansion that survived the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was destroyed in a fire this week.

Realtor.com reports that the home, known as the Monroe house, was the most expensive in Mississippi, valued at $15 million in 2011. It sat on eight acres just across the road from the state’s Gulf Coast beaches.

Firefighters responding to the blaze Monday said it was the largest fire they had ever seen. Local fire officials declared the house a total loss, according to WLOX. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

J. Edgar Monroe, a New Orleans businessman, built the house in 1963. Rosecliff,  the family’s summer home in Rhode Island—a house so grand it was featured in the 1974 film “The Great Gatsby”—inspired the design of their Mississippi mansion.

Charles Ramsey bought the house in the 1990s, adding two wings and tripling its footprint to an enormous 25,000 square feet. The additions expanded the house to 15 bedrooms and 19 bathrooms.

The mansion went on the market in 2011 for $15 million. The price dropped to $12.5 million in 2014 and recently to the bargain price of $6.5 million. Regardless, the house still topped the list of Realtor.com’s most expensive Mississippi real estate.

That title now passes to an estate in Flora, priced at $6 million. The 420-acre property includes a 7,400-square-foot mansion, and a second 6,000-square-foot house with a wine cellar, a caretaker’s lodge and a horse barn.

See a typo? Report it here.