The Plein Air community in Taylor will host the first “Conference on the Front Porch,” an event dedicated to the idea of the classic Southern front porch, Thursday and Friday at the Mill.
The Southern Living Idea house is located within Plein Air Community, a small town outside of Oxford. It is currently used for weddings and special events and is occasionally rented out for the weekend. (Photo by Marlee Crawford)
The Plein Air community is a neighborhood that celebrates traditional Southern lifestyle, according to their website. Plein Air is “where the streets are quiet” and “where you know your neighbors.” It was essentially built around the idea of the front porch.
Campbell McCool, founder of the Plein Air community, was inspired to create the conference after studying the history of the front porch and how it affects those who live in a “front porch community.”
“We are going to discuss and explore and celebrate the significance of the front porch in the American South from an architectural and sociological standpoint,” McCool said.
Discussions will range from the decline and incline in popularity of the front porch, as well as its evolution in style and impact on community life.
“I started studying the history of the front porch and the emotions that it draws up in people who grew up with a front porch,” he said. “I realized there was a whole conference that we can base on this philosophy. Neighborhoods that have a predominance of front porches take on a whole new personality than suburbs that don’t. They shape communities.”
And that is why the Plein Air development was created in 2007.
“Plein Air, our neighborhood here, is what we call a front porch community,” McCool said. “The front porch is really central to our theme. Everyone’s house here has a front porch, and because of that, the personality of the neighborhood has been shaped in a certain direction and that has been by design.”
This conference will be the first of its kind, but McCool said he hopes to make it an annual, three-day event. McCool said many speakers from all parts of the country were thrilled to be asked to participate in the unique event.
The conference’s keynote speaker is R. Scott Cook, author of “The Cultural Significance of the Front Porch.” Other featured panelists and speakers include Michael Dolan, editor of American History magazine; V. John Tee, Atlanta-based architect and frequent commentator on the stylistic evolution of the porch in the American South; and Leah Kemp, interim director of The Carl Small Town Center Group at The Mississippi State School of Architecture, among many others. The Center for the Study of Southern Culture at Ole Miss will also be contributing to the event, as well as professor Charles Reagan Wilson.
Attendance for the two-day conference was limited to 180 people and is currently sold out, but two events during the conference, a concert and play, will be open to the public.
A one-man Tennessee Williams porch play will be performed by Johnny McPhail at 8:30 p.m Thursday night on the front porch of the Southern Living House at Plein Air. Adrian Dickey will be performing music on the front porch of the house of Sparky Reardon former dean of students at Ole Miss.
