Beauvoir, Mississippi was the location of the retirement home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The compound consisted of approximately 608 acres (2.46 km2) when Davis lived there (today, the site is approximately 52 acres (210,000 m2) in size). Beauvoir is located in Biloxi, Mississippi across US Highway 90 from Biloxi Beach. The name "Beauvoir" means "beautiful to view".
Beauvoir was built by James Brown, a planter and entrepreneur, in 1848 and was completed in 1852. In 1873 the home was sold to Frank Johnston and soon thereafter to Sarah Anne Ellis Dorsey. Dorsey was a novelist and intellectual from Natchez, Mississippi, who was a staunch southern partisan. Dorsey lived in the home with her half-brother Mortimer Dahlgren. Dorsey invited Jefferson Davis to stay at Beauvoir and to write his memoir The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.
