Beauvoir-Jefferson Davis Shrine

A former home of Jefferson Davis, the only President of the Confederate States of America, the beautifully restored Beauvoir is a majestic, 51-​acre estate that features a rose garden, confederate soldiers’ cemetery, nature trails, and the Presidential Library. Revive the rich history of the American South by visiting the gulf-​facing, National Historic Landmark where Jefferson Davis once wrote his memoirs.

Interesting place. I love the view from the Main House and could sit on the rocking chairs for hours.
The tour guide was extremely knowledgable and allowed photos of the interior. The rooms were magnificent.
The grounds and history was interesting. It was also interesting how Hurricane Katrina affected the area.
The presidential library and artifacts in three building were priceless.

Given the devastation that Hurricane Katrina caused 10 years ago. The Beauvoir is doing its best to preserve a misunderstood and dying history. Unfortunately, Hurricane Katrina really did a damaging number on the property and to some of the historical artifacts. Many items were destroyed or damaged and smaller buildings on the property were destroyed. On the property there are free ranged chickens and peacocks. In a gated portion, there are goats, miniature horses, sheep, and horses. Within the same area is a confederate graveyard which has information, copies or historical documents, and stories on the buried dead.
If you plan on visiting Beauvoir, I would highly recommend that you reserve half a day or more to this site. I would also recommend that you bring water and a snack for when you are walking around the property.

I have lived in the area 33 years and just finally got around to seeing this place. Admission is $ 12.50 or $ 10 for military and law enforcement. Tours are every 30 minutes. The house is almost 200 years old and survived Hurricanes Camille (1969) and Katrina (2005). Unfortunately Katrina wiped out most of the smaller buildings. The main house was restored beautifully with the original furniture. The grounds include the restored rose garden, a museum/​gift shop, and a cemetery. Many Confederate soldiers are buried here. There is also a space in the back where animals such as goats, sheep, miniature horses, and a camel roam free. They are very friendly and you can pet them. It took us about 2 – 3 hours to see everything.

Great history lesson. Many things to see from the Confederate days. Takes you back in time

Very cool plantation house belonging to the first president of the confederacy. There’s a short guided tour inside the main home, but the rest is explore at your own pace. They have free range goats and a camel (camelot) and lots of history to be learned. For the $ 12.50 admission, you could spend the better part of the day here if you were so inclined.

In Biloxi, had to stop here and soak up some history. $ 12.50 per person.
Large grounds, some parts very well landscaped, others in need of a little help.
Did the house tour, our poor guide was definitely having some allergy issues. But he did a
good job. Was surprised that the house was as small as it was, expected much larger. Quite
a bit of interesting history.
Only 4 rooms to really see, the other 4 rooms were looked at through windowed doors.
Unfortunately, Hurricane Katrina destroyed most of the original structures. So the few buildings
that are here are reproductions.
Next we went to the museum and presidential library.
Very disappointed with the museum, not many items to see and very sparce. The building itself was
a cool design. The library was small, but we were surprised to see the number of books that were
written on and about the confederacy.
If your a history buff, definitely a stop to see!

Definitely worth coming to see for yourself, at least once!
It is located off the US-​90 or Beach Blvd., which runs right along the coast.
We were looking to see a «Plantation Home» while on our trip back home. The man at the Welcome Center had recommended this place along with a couple of others. So, we headed out here. Rather than a museum, historic home, etc, it is called a SHRINE. This is property owned & run by the Mississippi Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans.
The cost of admission was a discounted $ 10 per person for us. If you have the magazine which has a coupon in it, you can get a discount. I had the magazine, but didn’t find the coupon, but the lady at the gate gave us the discounted price. The price of admission lets you enter Beauvoir — the mansion, the Confederate Soldiers Home Cemetary, Jefferson Davis Presidential Library, Varina’s Rose Garden, and the area where a variety of animals are kept (zoo).
** Be sure to bring your walking shoes!
When you arrive at the house, you walk up the steps and onto the grand porch. There are a lot of rocking chairs there. From the porch, you can look out at the Missisippi Sound.
There is a tour guide, ours was a man who looked like he belonged to the time period (
) In the main hall, there are some pieces of original furniture which were used during Jefferson Davis’ time. This main hallway is where the majority of the history about the house is orated. Then you can view the rooms from the hallway.
As you exit the home from the back porch, you walk down the steps and to Varina’s Rose Garden (
) Beyond the rose garden (a nice area, but didn’t have a lot of roses) is the Confederate Cemetary which is the resting place to many Confederate Soldiers & family members as well as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. They have books for you to search through the names which could be useful for people to do genealogy research. (
) Samuel Emory Davis, Jefferson Davis’s father, is buried here. (
) Jefferson Davis was buried in New Orleans Metaire Cemetery, Davis’s widow, Varina, decided he should be buried at Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery considered the National Cemetery of the Confederacy, so his remains were moved there.
They say there is a zoo, but we saw animals that were all free to roam the huge gated/​fenced off areas. They have a few Llamas, Alpacas, Cows, Sheep, Goats, Peacocks (we didn’t see any), Ponies, a Donkey and a dog. Exiting this area might be a task if you have a line of goats resting in the shade, blocking the path out! (
)
There was a lot of damage from Hurricane Katrina. This has been restored and you can’t tell anything happened really. They did leave parts untouched so you can see what the damage looked like. There is no wallpaper in the house, everything is hand-​painted. (
)
Over at the Library, there is a museum, and on display, are some items they found from hurricane Katrina. (
) This museum had a lot of interesting items from the Civil War era.
Lastly, there is a Gift Shop where you can find keepsakes and period related things for sale.
If you enjoy history or just old things, this is a great place to see! I’m glad we took the time out of our road trip to absorb some history!

We really enjoyed touring this place but not just because of the history. There were two gals in our group that couldn’t walk to the Confederate cemetery and petting zoo so they let us take a golf cart to tool around the grounds!!! It just made our trip because no one in our group had to miss a thing. Plus we got a kick out of the ride to boot. Way to go Davis Shrine! Best stop ever! We wish more places did this!

Great history lesson. My tour guide had great information to share. I was very impressed with the information my tour guide had on just the house alone.
Make sure you bring your walking shoes. The property is huge.

A pretty cool historic site right on Ocean Blvd in Biloxi. This is the retirement home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis where he lived with his family for the last ten years of his life.
This old mansion has somehow survived both Hurricane Camille and Hurricane Katrina. The property was hit full blast by Katrina and suffered tremendous damage. It has since undergone extensive renovations and repairs to be restored to its former glory.
It costs 12.50 to take a guided tour of the mansion and exploring the grounds and library is free. There is also a huge Confederate Cemetery in the backyard area of the property. The cemetery includes the grave of the Unknown Confederate Soldier. I personally enjoyed checking out the interior architecture of the home myself.
The tour guide was very knowledgeable and shared not only a lot of interesting information about Davis’ time in the home, but also painted a pretty good picture of the damage done during Katrina. If you’re a history or architecture buff then set some time aside to stop here and visit the home, library, cemetery and grounds. There is quite a lot to see here!

Be very wary of any historical information coming from this place — on a tour today the guide claimed that John Hancock was the first actual president of the United States (based on the size of his signature on the Declaration of Independence) — never mind that the office of the presidency wasn’t created until the ratification of the Constitution over a decade later.

If you know your US History, then you probably know that Jefferson Davis was the only president of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. Did you know that he was also named after Thomas Jefferson? Well, I didn’t know the latter fact until I visited Beauvoir, Davis’s last home.
Beauvoir is French for beautiful view because it overlooks the Mississippi Sound. Admission is $ 10 with a AAA membership card and consists of the house tour, a carriage ride around the property, and sightseeing on the property. We decided to take the horse carriage ride before our tour. I would have to say that it was the most disappointing ride ever. It was the typical hot and humid MS summer, so our ride was cut real, real short. I think it lasted a total of 10 minutes because the driver said that it was too hot for the horses. I can understand that, but if that’s the case, why did he even take us in the first place? Anyway, on the carriage ride, he pointed out a few sights to us, including a little cottage that you can rent for $ 200 a night. When the ride was over, we went on our house tour.
Our guide was very knowledgeable. She told us of the history of the house and gave us time to look around and snap pictures while she stood behind answering any questions people may have. What I learned is that the home was the only building in the property to have survived Hurricane Katrina. Most of the furniture are originals and the Grandfather clock is the oldest piece of furniture in there, dating back to 1783.
After, we toured Varina’s Rose Garden and walked around the property until the heat was unbearable. If you have a few hours to spare and have an interest in US history, I recommend visiting the Beauvoir. It only takes a few hours of your day. I think we spent no more than 3 hours here.

If you are in the area this place is a nice place to stop by and take in some history. There is not a lot to see, so if you are in a rush it will take you around 2 hours to see it all.

My husband and I visited this morning before a hockey tournament he was playing in, so we were on limited time. The home itself is beautiful. Our tour guide, Jerry, was fantastic. He really knows his stuff. I liked that he would throw in random quips about the family.
I would have been interested to learn more about the unsavory aspects – the slaves. The tour acted as if this didn’t exist, and obviously there is a lot of history that seemed to have been swept under the rug.
All in all I would definitely do this tour again. I would have really liked a longer version of the tour which would show you over the grounds and through the cemetery.

Great tour. Interesting story behind the place. Staff is friendly and knowledgable. Make sure to enjoy the rocking chairs out front of the main building, or the the smaller building to the west.

I came on a whim today, after wanting to hit the beach, but it was too overcast, and happened upon this lovely stop. $ 7.50 to get in for retired military. I lucked out and caught the tour. It was all educational and very informative. I enjoyed my visit immensely.

Beauvoir is a great place to visit.
I have been to Beauvoir several times throughout the years. My most recent trip a few months ago made me realize that it was my first post Katrina visit. While a lot has changed, the restoration of the main house and surrounding property was quite well done.
When you get to Beauvoir, you begin in the gift shop. Tickets for the tour are purchased at the counter, then you head to the main house. The tour of the main house began on the porch and was very well done. Our guide found out where all of our group was from, and made sure to explain things thoroughly to the visitors from the North. A particularly humorous explanation involved the pecan as opposed to the pee-​can. He was also very knowledgeable about the property, Jefferson Davis and the events surrounding the home and property. I thoroughly enjoyed the tour.
After the tour of the house I walked to the graveyard. Besides being the last home of Jefferson Davis, Beauvoir also served as a home for confederate veterans and their families. Many of those people are buried in the cemetery to the rear of the property. The cemetery is serene and beautiful. It also houses the tomb of the unknown confederate soldier. It is definitely worth the walk.
I finished my tour by heading back to the gift shop. It was relatively small, but had some interesting items. There were also several relatively inexpensive items for kids if you want to reward your children for good behavior.
If you haven’t been, or haven’t been in a while, I encourage you to check out Beauvoir.

The library was still closed when we went here so we only toured the house and spent about 20 min in the trailer that is a gift shop. Easy parking. Tours were running on the hour.
Our tour guide was not great and the history was largely family based rather than historically context based (which I noticed about a lot of places that were built in the antebellum period). I’m interested in memories of the Civil War and it interesting to go but I wouldn’t make a special trip for it (we came from New Orleans). Home is very pretty and they have some original furnishings and paintings. The gift shop if worth a small trip because it is full of interesting memories of the Civil War. The ladies who run it are nuts, one had a British accent and I do not think she is English.
It’s a small home – one floor and they have restored a lot of it since Katrina but are still working on it.

Frank the tour guy is amazing!
The fam and I had so much fun touring around Jefferson Davis’s crib.