In Memoriam: John Neil Varnell

When clinical psychologist John Neil Varnell died on March 6, Natchez lost a character who, even by that town’s high standards of eccentricity, stood out. “He was so frugal it was annoying,” said Mimi Miller, executive director emeritus of the Historic Natchez Foundation and Varnell’s friend for forty years. “His clothes were threadbare. When he went to buy bacon for the B&B he would count the slices. Nobody ever dreamed he had any money.” So when the estate was settled in early September, Miller, like the directors of fifteen other Natchez non-profits and volunteer organizations, was astonished to learn that Varnell had left them a fortune totaling 2.5 million dollars. “He left $200,000 to the [Natchez] Cemetery [Association], $100,000 to the [George Armstrong] Library, Alcorn State University; each garden club got money. So did the [Natchez-Adams County] Humane Society—despite the fact that I never knew him to have a pet.” 

But Varnell, an ardent preservationist, left his most generous bequest—his 1894 Queen Anne home perched high on the Mississippi River bluffs in the Clifton Heights neighborhood—to the Historic Natchez Foundation. Varnell renovated it in the 1970s, then operated it as Bluff Top Bed & Breakfast—so frugally, Miller noted, that anytime he had a full house he would rent out his own room and sleep on the sofa. To raise funds for its ongoing preservation efforts, the Foundation will sell the home at auction, and is accepting bids through October 31. Their only stipulation: that after it is sold the house wear a plaque identifying it as The J. Neil Varnell House. “All that re-using and re-using and never spending … what Neil was doing was saving money,” Miller said. “So we’re trying to think of a way to honor him without spending any.” 

Interested parties should contact the Foundation at (601) 442-2500 or hnf@natchez.org.