02/20/09

Photo Gallery: Mills House and Smokehouse

The location known as "Mills House and Smokehouse" is currently known as Brookfield Plantation. It is private but available for tours (see the image of the roadside sign).

Brookfield includes seven acres of an original 2,500 acres owned by Thomas Roderick Mills on which he built a summer retirement home in 1875. The main house is two-story weatherboard of four over four design with a central stair hall. The rear porch was enclosed about 1890-1900 for a kitchen. The smokehouse was built about 1875 of rubble stone, lime and clay mud cast in linear forms. There are four more recent structures.

Brookfield is significant in architecture, commerce, and local history. Architecturally it is significant because it is an example of vernacular bracketed Italianate style. In commerce it is important because Thomas R. Mills, Sr., owner of the house, and his brother were important cotton shippers in Savannah during the mid-1800's and owned substantial interest in the Marine Bank. After the Civil War they retained their economic security. In local history it is significant that Mills built such a retirement home during the Reconstruction period. At Brookfield he also built a horse track and stables for thoroughbred horses, and he introduced the first Guernsey cows to Spalding County. Brookfield has been proposed for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places.
(Source: www.gshistoricalsociety.org)