Bellevue is a grand Greek Revival mansion, originally the center of a 1200-acre plantation property, built by Benjamin Harvey Hill (1823-1882) for his wife Caroline Holt Hill (1825-1904). It’s surrounded today by one of LaGrange’s premier historic residential districts. It was donated to the LaGrange Woman’s Club by the Fuller E. Callaway Foundation in 1942 and they have been its guardians ever since.

Benjamin Hill, who was born at Hillsboro in Jasper County, has been called a political chameleon for his wavering views and various party alliances. He started his career as a Whig and then became a strong Fillmore-supporting Unionist. Ultimately, he was Southern partisan who voted in favor of secession and quickly voiced public support for Confederate President Jefferson Davis while serving in the Confederate senate. Davis was even a visitor to Bellevue. In response to Reconstruction and the governorship of Republican Rufus Bullock, Hill helped inaugurate the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia during a speech made on 23 July 1868 that supported violence against the governor and others in favor of the Reconstruction government. He was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives and to the U. S. Senate in 1877. He died in office in 1882. Ben Hill County is named for him.

National Register of Historic Places + National Historic Landmark