Vance-Gillis House

Augustus Bohn arrived in New Orleans from Neuchatel in his youth, drove a carriage, and ended as a wealthy cotton merchant. He began buying the old Vance tract on West Beach in 1888, and his daughter Lucille Bohn Gillis became its sole owner in 1928. After a hotel bought the land in 1958, the house stood in the path of Interstate 110. The state highway commission arranged its move to East Beach in 1977, and in 1990 the Church of the Redeemer acquired it as a rector's manse. Hurricane Katrina destroyed it in 2005.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art — 0.5 mi
  Frank Gehry's pavilions on the Biloxi waterfront, built around the pottery of George Ohr, the self-styled Mad Potter, and the rebuilt Pleasant Reed House.
• Biloxi Beach Wade-In Marker — 1.2 mi
  The beachfront parking lot beside the Biloxi Lighthouse where state markers recall the 1959 and 1960 wade-ins that opened Mississippi's public beaches to Black residents.
• Biloxi Lighthouse — 1.2 mi
  A cast-iron tower lit in 1848 on the Biloxi beachfront, kept by women for most of its first century and still in service after Camille and Katrina.
• Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum — 1.3 mi
  A Point Cadet museum on Biloxi's oyster, shrimp and schooner past, from the packing houses and the shrimpers' unions to the Vietnamese families who rebuilt the industry.

More markers nearby

• Debuys-Hermann-Keller House — steps away
• Church of the Redeemer — steps away
• Biloxi — 0.2 mi
• Birthplace of Barq's — 0.2 mi