Last week our friends Albert and Nancy Kennington invited my wife Pam and me to join them for a tour of Bon Secour’s historic Swift-Coles House.

This unique home, just four rooms originally but later enlarged more than once, appears to be an ante-bellum mansion (but isn’t quite — it missed being ante-bellum by a couple of decades). The furnishings and artworks are eclectic, some of them odd and a few of some monetary value, but most of interest for one reason or another.

Homes in those days apparently had tiny closets or none at all, and the Swift-Coles House, as it is now furnished, has no free-standing wardrobes. We wondered where the family stored their garments. Did they wear the same ones day after day?

I’m sure many readers of this newspaper know nothing of the Swift-Coles House. So I invited Albert, who volunteers as a docent there, to write something about it. His column follows. I’ll be back next week. — Richard H. Schmidt

* At the end of Swift-Coles Lane in Bon Secour, a spacious, white frame house bound by porches on both floors stands quietly and proudly amidst a story-book setting of tall magnolia trees and live oaks gracefully draped with Spanish moss. Head-high azaleas, gnarled crape myrtles and spreading mop-head hydrangea fill the front yard. Marble cherubs with impish smiles guard the boundaries of the lawn. To the south and east, the Bon Secour River flows around a gentle bend on its way to Mobile Bay.

Beginning in 1882 as a four-room “dog-trot,” the house was, for 78 years, the home of one of the first families of lumber in south Alabama. Today, the Swift-Coles House is Baldwin County’s premier historic home and is open for visitors most Tuesdays and Fridays.

Charles and Susan Roberts Swift bought the little house in 1898. Charles and his brother Ira built a sawmill on the river, near the house. Ira settled his family across the river, and the business they began prospered. As their family grew, Charles and Susan enlarged the house, first in 1902 and again in 1908, and here they raised 11 children to adulthood. The business they began continues as the Swift Lumber Company and Swift Supply Company based in Atmore and operated by fourth-generation members of the family.

Three generations of the family lived in the house, and descendants who now live far from Bon Secour still come back to visit. Charles and Susan built a strong house. So far, it has escaped major damage from even the worst of our hurricanes. After all, bon secour means “good safety.”

In 1976, the Swift estate offered the house for sale, and it was quickly purchased by Nicholas Coles, a Gulf Shores restaurateur and antique dealer. He made two changes to the house, and otherwise kept it in good order. He removed the paint from the interior walls to reveal the heart-pine boards, and he filled the house with his eclectic collection of European and American antique furnishings.

Folks who knew Coles still speak of his love of the old house and his delight in inviting people to visit him. Upon his death in 2007, through provision in his last will and testament, the Baldwin County Historic Development Commission became owners of the house. Beginning in the spring of 2009, in accordance with his will, the house opened to receive visitors.

Visitors came and still come. Well over 10,000 visitors from almost every state in the union and at least eight foreign countries have found their way to this out-of-the-way lane in Bon Secour. Some have come twice and more.

Volunteer hosts greet visitors and guide them through the house. These volunteers love the house, learn its stories, and are eager to share them with visitors so that they, too, may sense the life of the place and all who lived there and come there still.

On most Tuesdays and Fridays of the year (county holidays excepted) the house is opened at 10 a.m. for visitors and the last tour begins at 3 p.m. The admission charge is $5.00 per person. When the weather is good, as it often is, the first story is told on the front porch. You are all invited.

Richard H. Schmidt is a retired Episcopal priest, editor and author who lives in Fairhope. He can be reached at courier@gulfcoastnewspapers.com.