A Rare Deep South Amish Homestead for Sale: 54 Acres, No Bathrooms — And a Furniture Shop (24 Photos)

Covered front porch with wooden rockers on a Swartzentruber Amish home in Mississippi — An Amish homestead for sale in the area of Randolph, Mississippi (Pontotoc County)

Here’s something you don’t come across every day — an Amish homestead for sale in Mississippi.

The Randolph community in Pontotoc County is one of only two Amish settlements in the entire Deep South. It was founded in 1995, primarily by settlers from the community at Ethridge, Tennessee — and close ties between the two communities remain.

This is a Swartzentruber Amish community — one of the most conservative of all Amish affiliations. No indoor plumbing, no electricity, no SMV triangle on the buggy.

When I visited this community in early 2020, it seemed to be going strong, or strong enough. It has never grown incredibly in the quarter-century-plus since its founding, but has appeared to be solidly established.

For what it’s worth, several years ago (2023) one commenter observed that the Amish here seemed to be leaving. And in 2024, we featured another home for sale in this settlement.

The latest population estimates has it at around 145 people. Whatever the story here community-wide, in this case we have a family selling their homestead – and putting it on the market for potential non-Amish buyers.

One attraction of this property is the land: 54 acres of fenced pasture and hardwoods at the end of a dead-end trail. Here’s the full listing description via Zillow:

Amish place for sale! 54 acres of fenced in pasture and hardwoods, house with basement, 56×36 barn, 32×76 shop, another 24×60 shop on slab with another 32X48 14′ high standing structure attached, woodshed/outhouse, chicken house with fenced in yard, lots of pasture, farm fields, and garden spots, a well, and all at the end of a dead end trail with all the privacy you could ever want! This place is a hidden gem!

Now let’s have a look around.

The House

The main house is a two-story structure, listed at 3,192 square feet (that’s including the basement).

How about this homey covered front porch with wooden rockers. We’ll see where those came from in a minute. This the kind of detail I’d probably want to keep if I were buying this place.

The home comes with a full basement – 1,216 square feet of space.

Inside the House

This home has relatively few interior photos. It is listed as having five bedrooms, but no photos are provided of those. But we do see the living room has all the classic notes of a plain Amish interior.

Hickory rockers, a wood heating stove, a sewing machine table, a wall clock, and a hutch with desk space. Beautiful hardwood floors which look to be in good shape.

Zooming in a bit gives a better look at the detail – calendar by the desk, oil lamp perched by the clock, scissors hanging from hooks beneath it.

The kitchen is a large open space – cookstove on the left, dining table to the right, plenty of room for a big family. And I count about five hats hung on hooks in the back – one which looks like dad’s and four for the boys. You can see the blue-gray painted cabinetry running along the back wall, which carries through to the next photo.

This space contains a sink, and a crude water source. Something I haven’t seen before as well – what appears to be oil cloth material pinned up around the sink area. I suppose that is mean to protect the wood surfaces from water damage.

This space appears to be a summer kitchen or utility room, likely within the main house itself. A summer kitchen is a common feature in traditional Amish homes, used for heavy cooking and canning to keep heat out of the main living area.

The Garden

On the side of the house, a tidy kitchen garden with raised beds. A robust-looking garden you’d expect to see at a Swartzentruber family’s home – especially given their tendency towards large gardens, even among the Amish.

A closer look at the beds. We also see what looks like a mini-dawdihaus. I recall visiting an older lady known to a local friend of mine when I visited this settlement in 2020. She was living in a very small structure not unlike this one.

The Furniture Shop

Now on to the furniture operation. The long weathered building to the left is the furniture shop with the red barnlike structure adjacent.

Love the simple handmade block-letter “YES I’M OPEN” sign. Swartzentruber Amish signage and advertising, to the extend that it exists, is never too flashy.

Inside the red barn, a space packed with finished outdoor furniture. We see porch swings, one hanging on chains, most resting on the floor, and Adirondack chairs.

The workshop side with a barrel wood stove, tools along the walls. A simple but serious workspace. Note: it’s unclear by the description what elements from this operation would stay behind. I would assume that the tools, inventory, and other implements would go with the owner to their next location.

A basic staircase leads to an upper loft area, with more chairs – stained and unstained – visible on the floor below. This looks like a full-time business, not a small side operation.

And the raw material side. This looks like it may have once been space for a sawmill. Now, stacks of lumber used for the chairs and benches.

The Land and Outbuildings

The red barn is a common sight at Swartzentruber places, giving a vibrant splotch of color to the scene. Log pile suggests maybe some sawmilling has been happening here even recently. Simple metal clothesline posts for hanging laundry.

Here we have a grain silo, what appears to be a large water storage tank, and a proper barn. If you look closely in the shadows under the barn’s overhang, you can just make out a buggy or two parked inside.

The gravel lane running back through the property, chicken yard on the left.

With 54 acres you get views like this – open fenced pasture with horses grazing in the distance. This view really reminds me of the terrain of this small community when you’re driving through the “heart” of it.

A rear angle of the house, with a couple of four-legged friends keeping watch on the porch. It’s not listed when this place was built, and with Swartzentruber homes, which tend to vary little in style, and tend to quickly acquire a lived-in appearance, it can be hard to tell.

One of several outbuildings on the property. I can’t say for sure but his very well may be the outhouse, based on how it’s situated close to the home (we see the walkway leading to it in the photo above) and its design.

So there you have it – an uncommon look at one of the few Amish homesteads in the Deep South to go on the online market. So what is the price of this place?

This property is listed at $375,000 and is represented by Carey Cossey of Southern Hills Realty & Appraisal, Inc.