Chelsea Moore In The News

Indian Hill antebellum
Historic Mississippi mansion inspired family's design

A random tourist stop, a $5 guidebook and a sense of determined individuality became the blueprint for Alfie and Betty Moore's 7,000-square-foot Indian Hill home.

Nine years ago, the Moores were visiting friends in Louisiana when they came upon Longwood, a five-story antebellum mansion in Natchez, Miss., one of the few historic sites open that day.

The home, with its interesting octagonal shape, was built on a cotton plantation in 1859. Only nine of the home's planned 32 rooms were completed because of the Civil War.

For the Moores, the destination was meant to be nothing more than a way to pass the day, but the home's design stopped them in their tracks. The shape would fit on their slender Indian Hill lot and, Alfie knew, yield energy savings.

"The perimeter is less than if it were more rectangular," says Alfie, a former builder who owned Chelsea Moore Construction Co. before turning the business over to his son.

The couple went through five architects who couldn't grasp the home's shape or concept before they found Paul Madden. The architect shrunk the design and tucked an eat-in kitchen, spacious bathrooms and walk-in closets - absent from Longwood's historic plan - into the corners of the home.

In 2000, Chelsea Moore began constructing the two-story home, which is supported by four primary columns and steel beams. In 2001, the couple moved into their one-of-a-kind house, affectionately referred to by their friends as "Shortwood."

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