Restored Ocean Springs Gem is Now a Boutique Hotel
When Kim Mitchell first saw the house and property at 1101 Iberville Drive in Ocean Springs, she just knew she was in a magical place.
“I fell in love with it immediately,” she said. “As soon as I saw it, I just knew it could be a boutique hotel.”
She and her husband Troy were looking to move from Central Illinois to the Gulf Coast. He was born in Biloxi but his family moved northward when he was a child so his father could pursue his career. He grew up there, met his wife, and they raised four children in a small Illinois town and worked in the hospitality business. “In some ways, Ocean Springs reminds me of it,” she said.
The Mitchells began traveling back to the Coast after their children were grown. Each time they came, they found themselves wanting to stay longer. With the blessing of their children, they began the search for a new opportunity in a warmer climate.
“And this was it,” she said. “We’d thought about getting a condo or something like that, but I told my husband I have a vision for the house and the property.”
That vision yielded the now Mockingbird Inn, but little did she know just how magical of a place it was at first glance, or even when they bought the house and property in 2021. The couple talked to the Iberville Drive neighbors and a historian and discovered they were surrounded by a vast amount of Ocean Springs yore that included the site of the first hotel in the City of Discovery in the early 1800s.
Hundreds of years ago, a myriad of mineral springs flowed in and around the Iberville neighborhood. American Indians thought the waters held curing powers, healing dyspepsia, indigestion, insomnia, and kindred ailments. They named the springs “E-Ca-Na-Cha-Ha” which means holy ground.
The Reverend P. P. Bowen built the first inn to accommodate people who flooded the area to take advantage of the sulfur and chalybeate springs. He is also credited with an 1860 land donation for a public gravesite, which is now known as Evergreen Cemetery and is near the Mockingbird Inn. Although the magical springs no longer flow, and the original structures are long gone, Marble Springs City Park pays homage to the Iberville neighborhood’s past and is next to the Mockingbird Inn.
“When people started building homes and digging wells the water table decreased and that’s when the springs didn’t come back up to the surface. I’d like to think it’s still down there somewhere,” she said.
The Mitchells knew they wanted to preserve as much of the original architecture as possible, but they also expected it to be a lot of work since the house was built in 1899 and had been transformed into office space by previous occupants.
“Some of it was in disrepair, but we saved everything we could including some of the original windows,” she said.
The Mockingbird Inn opened in 2022 and has since had more than 800 completed stays. With the house renovations finished, the Mitchells moved on to their next project, remaking an out-of-place garage into a handicap-accessible cottage.
“We have a lot of repeat guests which is the biggest compliment we can get,” she said, adding the house itself did not change hands a lot until around 2001 when it became a commercial property. Only three families previously owned the house with the last raising eight children.
“One of their granddaughters is getting married in the front yard under the Live Oaks in May in the exact spot where her parents were married,” she said.
Even though no one really knows exactly where the original inn sat in the Iberville neighborhood or if the springs still bubble somewhere below, the Mitchells felt a soul-stirring connection to the area and knew they wanted to revive the historical and magical Mockingbird Inn.
The Mockingbird Inn
1101 Iberville Dr., Ocean Springs
MockingbirdInnOSMS@gmail.com
www.themockingbirdinn.com
