In the tiny town of Monticello, Miss., roughly an hour’s drive south of Jackson, a bright blue Victorian-style house overlooks the Pearl River. Constructed in the 1890s, the cupola atop the structure once served as an overlook for steamboats that plied the river that long served as a local transportation route.

Past the big, chair-covered front porch is a purple foyer covered in plants and artwork from local artists where Robin Lofton, owner of what locals dub the “Blue House,” keeps a small booklet on an end table placed to be the first thing visitors see upon stepping inside. Simple as the booklet appears, it serves as a guest registry containing four years’ worth of signatures from hundreds of people from 26 states, the United Kingdom and Scotland who have all made the trek to visit the River Bend House of Brews.

“Corny as it sounds, I like to ask people who come through from out of town or out of state, wherever or whoever they might have heard of us from, to write their names and let folks know where they came from and when they were here,” Lofton says. “It helps people remember us, and I’ve even gotten some Christmas cards and gifts from folks who put their names down thanking me for the hospitality they found here.”

River Bend House of Brews’ guest registry contains four year’s worth of signatures from hundreds of guests from 26 states, the United Kingdom and Scotland. Photo by Robin Lofton

Lofton purchased the 135-year-old house from the City of Monticello in September 2020 and greatly remodeled the interior while preserving the exterior. The Victorian house has served as a combination coffee shop, art gallery and music venue since January 2021.

“I’ve worked to provide a cool atmosphere here that’s a blend of the French Quarter and Greenwich Village,” Lofton says. “This house itself has a character to it that’s not antebellum—more like what you might see out somewhere like Williamsburg, Va. You can just see the history and changes that happened inside over such a long period of time in everything from the paneling to the wallpaper that was originally here.”

History and Hearsay

Lofton’s efforts to look into the history of the house that River Bend now occupies revealed a long list of changing hands and shifting functions over the course of a century, as well as legends about a possible haunting. Supposedly, the house originally belonged to a man named Joseph Dayle who moved into Monticello in the 1890s and purchased a local newspaper outlet called the Monticello Gazette, which he renamed to the Laurence County Press. A story goes that somewhere around the turn of the century, Dayle’s 8-year-old daughter either died of yellow fever inside the house or drowned in the nearby Pearl River.

“There’s been a lot of hearsay about paranormal events happening here surrounding that story long before I got here,” Lofton says. “The Tangipohoa Parish Paranormal Society has been here at least six times over the years, and we’ve had a man named Brian Riley from the Mississippi Paranormal Society come here at least twice. Both of those groups claimed that they think they picked up an entity that they believed to be a child here.”

Robin Lofton opened River Bend House of Brews after she retired from her old job as a school teacher in Monticello, Miss., as a way of meeting new people while promoting local artists in Mississippi. She purchased the 135-year-old building from the City of Monticello in September 2020. The house allegedly once belonged to a man named Joseph Dayle who moved into Monticello in the 1890s. Photo courtesy Robin Lofton

While Lofton doesn’t know much more about River Bend’s local legends herself, she does know its more practical history. After Doyle died in 1930, the house stayed in his family until the 1950s when it became a boarding house for local teachers. It became a beauty shop in the 1970s and then a private residence for an insurance salesman in the 1980s. The City of Monticello purchased the house in 1995 and used it as the headquarters for the next 20 years, approximately. Lofton says the house had sat vacant for about five years before she bought it in 2020.

Lofton, a retired teacher who also volunteered at a local museum, initially decided to open her own coffee shop as a way to get back out into her community and to meet people after a long period of isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She started serving beer and hosting live bands by popular request not long after opening, and shortly after she further expanded into a consignment gallery for local artists. Lofton’s focus on shining a spotlight on local artists of all stripes soon allowed her to both meet and touch the lives of more people than ever before, she says.

Mollie Greer’s ‘Birdhouse Gourds’ and ‘Mushroom Lamps’

Columbia, Miss., native Mollie Greer is one of roughly 25 Mississippi visual artists whose work is regularly on display on every wall and available surface inside Riverbend. One of Greer’s earliest memories is of her mother, Jennifer Case, hand-carving wooden Christmas ornaments for every student in her class in elementary school, which inspired a lifelong love for handicraft.

Mollie Greer, one of at least 25 artists who showcase their work at Riverbend House of Brews, began carving “birdhouse gourds” after her husband brought one home for her. She carved 140 gourds during the first summer she took up the hobby. Photo by Mollie Greer

It was Greer’s husband, Lamar, who got her hooked on what is now her favorite type of craft. Every year, the Greers’ yard hosts a large flock of migratory purple martin birds, which love to nest inside carved-out cured gourds that locals hang out on wires. One day Lamar brought a gourd home and suggested that Greer try painting it. She quickly became hooked, painting 140 gourds over a single summer and often working on them until midnight even after coming home from her full-time job as a nurse at Diversicare in Tylertown, Miss.

Greer posted photos of her gourds on Facebook, and they became a hit, selling for roughly $10 apiece. She soon began getting requests for customized birdhouse gourds decorated with different animals and team logos, and she devised other uses for the gourds such as cutting off the tops and fitting them with lightbulbs to serve as what she calls “mushroom lamps.”

Mollie Greer began carving her “birdhouse gourds” to house migratory purple martin birds that frequent her home. She also cuts the top off gourds and fits them with lightbulbs to serve as “mushroom lamps.” Photo by Mollie Greer

The Facebook posts also caught Lofton’s eye, who reached out to Greer in 2022 and asked if she would like to showcase her gourds inside Riverbend. Greer travelled out to Monticello and quickly fell in love with the cozy porch and Victorian aesthetic of the “Blue House.” Today her gourds are hung up all over the upstairs and downstairs of the house, including a bright green one right next to Lofton’s guest registry.

“Robin is someone who both knows her business and is easy to get along with,” Greer says. “She treats everyone fairly and respectfully and works hard to get the word out about local artists. I know putting my art in River Bend has helped me grow my outreach more than I could have on my own. It’s a place where everyone is welcome and you can have a good time and make new friends while enjoying some great coffee and tea.”

Naomi Taylor Raines: ‘Whispering Trees’

River Bend House of Brews’ Lady Grey Room, named for its sparkling grey floor, has hosted roughly 325 musical acts from Mississippi and beyond since River Bend opened for business. Lofton considers the room, which only holds roughly 30 people at a time, to be more like a listening room for smaller, more intimate performances.

Among the venue’s regulars is Naomi Taylor Raines, who grew up watching her father Wade Taylor play guitar for her inside their home in Lucedale, Miss., and later taught herself to play on a cheap guitar from Walmart. She also learned that her grandfather Charles Mitchell had been part of a travelling band together with his five siblings. When her grandfather passed away, he left Raines his instruments and a collection of handwritten songs, which have served as her greatest source of musical inspiration.

Jackson native Naomi Taylor Raines began pursuing a musical career after her grandfather Charles Mitchell left her his instruments and collection of handwritten songs upon passing away. Photo courtesy Naomi Taylor Raines

Raines started out playing solo at local festivals and car shows in Lucedale until she moved to the Jackson metro area in 2018, where she began performing at restaurants and church events. She reached out to fellow musicians Caleb Dickerson, Perry Hammett and her then-fiance Joey Raines and formed the Naomi Taylor Band in 2020, but the group changed the band’s name to Whispering Trees after she and Joey married a year later.

“The original name didn’t really fit after my last name changed, so we decided to come up with a name that we felt was grounded and showed off our love of earth imagery,” Raines says. “We actually decided on ‘Whispering Trees’ because of a tree we have out in our yard with a marking on it that we think looks like a face.”

Though Dickerson and Hammett recently left the band, the group of four did produce a pair of singles called “Where Are You Now” and “Bloodline.” As a duo, Raines and her husband recently put out a new single titled “Waiting” and are working on a debut album titled “Take Me Away” that is set to release sometime in 2025. Raines’ work also earned her the Mississippi Songwriter of the Year award in 2023.

Raines says she reached out to Lofton not long after River Bend began serving as a live-music venue because Lofton had quickly built up a reputation as someone who is supportive of both original artists and music.

Naomi Taylor Raines founded the Whispering Trees together with her then-fiance Joey Raines and local musicians Caleb Dickerson and Perry Hammett in 2020. Photo courtesy Naomi Taylor Raines

“A lot of music venues in Mississippi prefer to bring in cover bands to appease their audiences, but River Bend is a place that actually supports songwriting,” Raines says. “When I first booked a show there Miss Robin welcomed me with open arms and actually asked me outright to play my original songs, which was quite refreshing. It’s now one of my favorite places to play music, both for the friendly sitting room setup of the Lady Grey Room and for Miss Robin herself. She’s a cool hippie who walks around in jewelry and sandals and is just open and welcoming to everyone. We’re all out here trying to support each other as local artists and musicians and she is a big part of that.”

Lofton says that while her venue may be small, she is immensely proud of the wide variety of local music and artists she’s been able to host.

“We love getting the chance to showcase local music, and just about every song you’re likely going to hear in here is an original,” Lofton says. “We’re on Highway 84 off of Hattiesburg and Natchez, so we’re a stopping point for musicians often heading off for a paid gig elsewhere. All we can give them is the $5 to $10 cover charge money from folks coming in, but we still get people who come in maybe three hours out from Oxford who come to play even though they don’t make a killing.”

‘Really About Hanging Out’

The guest registry Lofton keeps in River Bend’s foyer serves a double purpose beyond helping her to remember all the guests who have passed through and to give them something to remember in turn, Lofton says. The registry serves as proof of River Bend’s popularity, which Lofton plans to use to secure a state tourism grant to help with the venue’s upkeep and to improve it further.

“Being such a small town and with the state of the economy, it’s been economically awful for us recently,” Lofton said. “A tourism grant will help us make sure this house stays as nice as it is. It’s just too nice of a house to let go of.”

Riverbend House of Brews contains a listening room called the Lady Grey Room, an art room called the Purple Parlor and an outdoor stage overlooking the Pearl River and Cooper’s Ferry Park. Photo courtesy Robin Lofton

In addition to its Lady Grey Room listening area, River Bend has an art room called the “Purple Parlor,” an outdoor stage overlooking the Pearl River and the neighboring Cooper’s Ferry Park, as well as a boardwalk that passes through the park’s tree canopy. On top of hosting local musicians, Riverbend rents out rooms for parties, club meetings, weddings and other events.

“We’re small, but we’re proud of what we’ve done here and the creatives we’ve hosted from all over,” Lofton says. “I’m planning to write a book about River Bend and all the experiences I’ve had here, as well as all the artists and musicians who have come through. After my husband and I retired, this became the perfect place for us and others to come out and meet people we normally never would. We don’t turn a profit from it, so running River Bend has become more like a hobby for us, one that’s really about hanging out.”

Read original article by clicking here.

River Bend House of Brews: Monticello Café Promotes Mississippi Musicians, Artists

History and Hearsay

Mollie Greer’s ‘Birdhouse Gourds’ and ‘Mushroom Lamps’

Naomi Taylor Raines: ‘Whispering Trees’

‘Really About Hanging Out’

Local Dining Stream

Things To Do

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