Built for Irish planter Robert Sheegog, Rowan Oak is a relatively modest, wooden, two-story, neoclassical revival house with a two-story portico, center-hall plan, and an unremarkable interior. There are more than a few houses comparable to it in Mississippi, but only this one is the place William Faulkner (1897–1962) called home from 1930 until his death in 1962, the place where he wrote Absalom, Absalom (1936), The Reivers (1962), and other works. He gave the house its name and made additions to the rear, including a study (1950) where he later wrote an outline for The Fable (1954) on the walls. There is a sizable brick kitchen and cook’s quarters (c. 1855) to the rear and behind it a wooden tenant’s house (c. 1900). To the west stands a small barn (c. 1844) built of square-hewn logs and beyond it a second barn (c. 1955) where Faulkner housed his jumping horses. The house is preceded by an allée of cedars, and its grounds contain hundreds of species of native plants. In 1972, Faulkner’s daughter, Jill, sold the house to the University of Mississippi, which maintains it and opens it to the public.