Antebellum Brick House Above the Holston River
3401 Netherland Inn Road, Kingsport, TN 37660
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
No public access. View only from the public road.
Access
Limited Access
Roadside along Netherland Inn Road
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1818 · Antebellum Architecture · Founding of Kingsport · Holston River Heritage
Rotherwood Mansion stands on a bluff above the Holston River at 3401 Netherland Inn Road in Kingsport, Tennessee. The Reverend Frederick A. Ross, a Presbyterian minister and Virginia-born planter, began the house around 1818 with a brick north wing. A parallel south wing was added about 1820, and the two parallel structures were joined under one roof in the 1840s, a phased construction that gives the house its unusual symmetry. Ross named the house after the home of Cedric the Saxon in Sir Walter Scott's 1820 novel Ivanhoe.
Ross inherited several hundred acres along the Holston and founded the village of Rossville, which later merged with Christianville to form Kingsport. Financial reverses, including the failure of his silk-mill enterprise, forced him to sell Rotherwood to his bookkeeper, Joshua Phipps, in 1847. Phipps, who died in 1861, is the second name attached to the property's folklore.
The mansion has remained in private hands across multiple twentieth- and twenty-first-century owners. It is not operated as a museum or historic site. Newport Discovery Guide and the Kingsport Public Library Archives both note that the grounds are not open to tourists. Visitors must content themselves with views from the road or from passing river craft.
Sources
Rotherwood's most-told story is the Lady in White. The traditional version centers on Rowena Ross, daughter of Frederick A. Ross, whose fiancé is said to have drowned in the Holston River on or near their wedding day. Some retellings extend the tragedy across multiple suitors. In the legend's most common form, Rowena eventually drowned herself in the same river, and her figure is reported at the upstairs window facing the Holston or moving along the riverbank on foggy nights with a full moon.
The second figure in the folklore is Joshua Phipps, the bookkeeper who purchased Rotherwood from Ross in 1847. Local accounts describe Phipps as a cruel man in life, and a laughing voice attributed to him is said to be heard inside the house. The Phipps story belongs to a different tonal register from the Rowena account: where Rowena's legend is melancholic, Phipps's is openly malevolent.
Neither story has documentary corroboration in the surviving Ross family papers held at regional archives, and the WJHL and Kingsport Public Library accounts both treat them as enduring local folklore rather than verified history. The mansion's location on a bluff above an active river, combined with its long history of private ownership and limited public access, has helped sustain the legends across more than a century. The grounds remain private and the mansion is not open for tours.
Notable Entities
View the 1818-1845 brick mansion from Netherland Inn Road, where it overlooks the Holston River. The house is a private residence and not open for tours; do not approach the building or driveway. The Lady in White is most often associated with the upstairs window facing the river.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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