Worlds Away

A Poplarville, Mississippi, farmhouse goes against the grain thanks to contemporary architecture and a collection of antiques sourced from near and far

- BY BETSY WATSON

WHEN Trishala Bhansali needs a break from the day-to-day frenzy of running her New Orleans clothing-and-home goods shop, Lekha, she makes the 90-minute drive to her family's Poplarville, Mississippi, farm.

The place has been a cherished spot since she was young, when her parents bought the property as an escape—one where they could ride their horses over the rolling terrain and spend weekends introducing their children to the delights of wide-open spaces and fishing on the lake. They named it Shivpuri Farm. “When we were kids, we would go every Friday through Sunday,” Bhansali recalls. “I learned to swim there; I learned how to ride there. We would play croquet, soccer, and badminton, and we had a trampoline. There’s an awesome little rose garden, and we would grow strawberries, blueberries, pears, and watermelons.... It was just a blast.”

Her parents tapped a good friend, the late architect Arthur Q. Davis (his firm, Curtis & Davis, designed New Orleans fixtures like the Superdome), to build their home away from home. “They were enthralled by his approach to things,” says Bhansali of his celebrated modernist bent, which translated to a cedar-and-brick farmhouse with sky-high ceilings and sometimes quirky angles—a far cry from much of the local architectural vernacular. “He called the house the embodiment of rustic contemporary.... They wanted to make it so that wherever you were inside, you could see the expanse of land. That's why there are tons and tons of windows.” They dubbed it the “house on the hill,” acknowledging its enviable position in the landscape, the highest point in town at the time.