Jackson emerged as one of America’s most bustling capital cities in the early 20th century, and Capitol Street became the city’s beating heart. Visitors from far and wide came to see downtown for themselves, and many stayed in Capitol Street’s cluster of hotels, like the King Edward, the Heidelberg, or the Walthall.
Decades have since passed, but monuments of the era have been preserved – some even finding new life today. One, the former Edison Walthall Hotel, now houses a complex of luxury apartments, the Walthall Lofts, which are studded with dazzling reminders of the building’s rich history.
The striking terrazzo floors in the entrance to the luxury apartment complex are original to the building, dating back to the 1930s when it was the Walthall Hotel. The flooring, concealed beneath carpeting for decades, shimmers and reflects the light of the glitzy gold fixtures overhead. Along with a restaurant and bar, visitors can find a barbershop on the first floor, featuring original stained glass, vintage-style seating, and mahogany shelves – beautiful relics of the past.
“The first time I walked in there several months ago, it was like, ‘whoa!’ It’s just gorgeous,” says Paula Jackson. “You walk in there, and you just feel like you’re in New York City, or an era that you want to be dressed up and go to dinner and just walk up and down the lobby. It’s just – it kind of takes you back.”
Paula Jackson, owner of Jackson Street Gallery, curates the art featured on the walls of the Walthall’s lower floors. “It’s kind of an art deco look right now,” says Jackson, “but that will change, because I’m going to change out the paintings supposedly every three to four months.”
The paintings are for sale, but while they hang at the Walthall, they adorn the historic hotel with a flair of modern luxury. “All the artwork being Mississippi artists through Paula Jackson’s Jackson Street Gallery has been really instrumental in delivering this feel and look of luxury, and she’s done a fantastic job for us,” says Sunny Sethi. (Sethi acts as a spokesperson for the management team behind the Walthall Lofts.)
The old hotel, as well as its neighboring structure, the former Eastland Federal Building, have been completely transformed. Both buildings comprise residential space, several dining options, and countless other features accessible to residents. Though they reflect their roots, the buildings are refurbished with modern utilities and stylish amenities. Residents at the Lofts have access to sleek, state-of-the-art appliances and to the glamorous pool area on the fifth floor.
Judging from the juxtaposition of decades-old artifacts and sparkling South Beach-style trappings, it’s clear that maintaining a balance between modernity and history was at the core of the Lofts’ development. “Being able to look back at the history of Jackson – through the good and the bad of it – that allows us to look forward,” Sethi says.
The Walthall indeed has a rich history, and it starts in a three-story bakery predating the 1930s.
The Jackson Baking Company operated as a bake shop and tearoom on Capitol Street, but as the center of Mississippi’s capital city became a metropolis in the 1920s, a hotel was designed to take the bakery’s place.
An eight-story building was constructed over the baking company, with its tearoom finding new life as the hotel’s dining room. Then, in 1929, the Walthall Hotel opened its doors, in all its neo-Gothic glory.
The Walthall wasn’t lofty or lavish, but it was known among Jacksonians for its Sunday brunch and grand Christmas decorations. The hotel even occasionally attracted local celebrities or state politicians – perhaps the most notable being Gov. Paul B. Johnson, who had a full-on brawl with the editor of the Jackson Daily News in the lobby.
In the 1950s, the first of many renovations took place in the Walthall, with remodelers trading its classical, mahogany-draped interior for a more sleek, stylish look. Then, in the 1960s, more drastic reconstructions took place, undoing much of the hotel’s dignified, traditional air: metal and porcelain panels made up the building’s public face, interior corridors were traded for exterior ones, a massive parking garage was erected in the back. “You know, very 1960s – you could almost say psychedelic,” jokes Sethi.
The hotel was renamed the Downtowner Motor Inn, and later, the Quality Inn Executive Plaza before the Walthall name was restored in the mid-1980s.
Some of today’s Jacksonians may have even known the hotel as the Edison Walthall Hotel; the “Edison” bit was derived from the hotel’s owner in the 1990s and 2000s, Earl Edison Gaylor. Gaylor invested millions in reconstructing the polished classicism of the 1930s-era Walthall.
Then, by 2008, the hotel traded hands again. More internal refurbishments began, like fresh air conditioning and plumbing systems, but a water main incident left the hotel’s lower levels flooded during construction. In 2010, water damage forced the doors of the Walthall shut, seemingly for good.
However, the Walthall Hotel and the Eastland Federal Building next door were soon being covertly transformed into a complex of elegant apartments behind a barricade of yellow construction tape.
All of this was a mystery to the general public until mere months before the apartments’ official move-in day: July 15, 2020. On that day, the doors of the Walthall opened again in the form of the Walthall Lofts. Six new residents moved in the day the doors opened, and five came the next day. Within weeks after that, while the former Eastland Federal Building was still being renovated, a sky bridge was installed connecting it to the main Walthall building.
The Walthall Lofts exploded from downtown Jackson’s best-kept secret to its most exciting and rapid-growing residential project.
The building certainly went through a lot to get there, between mercurially shifting ownership, devastating floods, and renovations both radical and restorative. When it came to preservation, then, the Walthall Lofts developers had their work cut out for them.
“It’s like a relationship,” explains Sethi. “When you get married or have a boyfriend, it takes an effort. That doesn’t mean it’s a challenge. It just takes effort, which makes it more meaningful.”
This project will certainly be meaningful to Mississippi’s capital. The Walthall Lofts are an exciting development for the city of Jackson, and they provide a safe, comfortable place to live and work for the Jacksonians who call it home. “Jackson is the capital of our state,” says Sethi. “We all love Mississippi, we all live here for some reason or another, and the heart of the state, which is Jackson, should be a bustling, active place.”
The Walthall Lofts have drawn from Jackson’s bustling past and intertwined it with the present, all adding up to a promising development with a bright future ahead.
