The Bethea-Strother house, also known as “Pleasant Ridge”, is the only brick antebellum residence remaining in Wilcox County, and one of the few extant plantation houses left in the Canton Bend area. The Bethea-Strother house is a two-story, one-room deep brick structure with a single-story frame ell at the rear. Its detailing is typical of Wilcox County architecture of the 1840s – a mixture of both Federal and Greek Revival influences.
Tristram Bethea, a native South Carolinian, built this home circa 1844. He had moved to Wilcox County in the 1820s and established a law practice. When he moved to Mobile in 1850 the home was acquired by George O. Miller on October 7, 1850. He paid $2,800 for 157 acres of land, the home, and other improvements. Only a few years later, the Millers sold the property to J.C. Stoddard, who, in 1873, sold the house to Joseph E. Strother. Joseph and his descendants lived in the home until the 1940s and continued to own the house into the 1980s.
Unoccupied since the 1940s, the house fell into disrepair. Cliff Redenour and his partner, Ron Smith, purchased the home in 1987. Redenour was a New Orleans businessman with interests ranging from a bar in the French Quarter to historic restoration in New Orleans. The new owners of the Bethea-Strother home performed an extensive restoration of the house.
The Bethea-Strother Home is featured in the large-format book, Silent in the Land, which is a unique depiction of the major styles and periods of Southern architecture with photographs by artist Chip Cooper and essays by Harry Knopke and Robert Gamble.
This home was photographed and recorded in the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) in 1937. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1985.
The Bethea-Strother home is located on Alabama 28 near the intersection of Alabama 28 and Co. Road 19 in the community of Canton Bend in Wilcox County (32.053917,-87.349750 – Google Maps).
This is a private residence – drive by only.
Sources: 1) NRHP “Tristram Bethea House” Nomination Form; 2) Wilcox Historical Society; 3) Wikipedia (Tristram_Bethea House).
B&W photographs courtesy of the US Library of Congress (HABS), photographer: Alex Bush, date: March 27, 1937.