Peter and Eliza Lowe Little named their house in honor of the French fort that stood south of the property. Tradition attributes the design and construction to Peter Little’s brother-in-law, James Shryack Griffin, listed as a carpenter in the 1819 Baltimore City Directory. Griffin died in Natchez from yellow fever in 1823. Rosalie expanded the “Natchez Mansion” form that was introduced at Auburn (ND53) to include a rear full-width, giant-order colonnade. Rosalie’s facade and public side elevation feature Flemish bond brickwork, and the portico and rear colonnade are Tuscan. An oval window with radiating muntins pierces the pediment of the portico, which has a modillion cornice that extends unbroken around the house. Elliptical fanlights crown all exterior doors, and elaborate Federal millwork adorns the exterior and interior. Rosalie’s rear colonnade is locally unique in resting directly upon brick paving, and it shelters original back steps, with the tread, riser, and bed molding of each step fashioned from a single log.
The interior, a conventional double-pile plan with a center-hall, features a lateral stair hall separating the library and dining room, characteristic of many Natchez mansions. The staircase extends with an unbroken handrail from the main floor to the attic, which is vented by a rear dormer window.
The Andrew Wilson family acquired Rosalie in 1838 and updated the house with marble mantels, ornamental plaster, and new furnishings. Since 1938, the Mississippi State Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, has opened the house daily as a museum with original mid-nineteenth-century furnishings. Original outbuildings include a two-story gabled brick building with a first-story kitchen and second-story quarters for enslaved workers. Attached to the kitchen’s south wall is a one-story brick smokehouse.