In a region noted for it's elegant plantation mansions, Greenwood stood out as one of the finest. Built in 1830 by William Ruffin Barrow from Highland Plantation, the home was designed by noted architect James Hammon Coulter, who also designed neighboring Ellerslie around the same time.

The style of the house was Greek Revival, of such massive symmetrical construction that it was described by National Geographic Magazine in it's April 1930 issue as the finest example of that architectural type in the South.  Nearly 100 feet square, the home was completely surrounded by 28 huge Doric Columns of slave-made brick rising more than 30 feet from a porch set 5 feet above ground level, and supporting an intricately detailed entablature and a solid copper roof.

A 70-foot central hallway was flanked by large interior rooms with 14-foot ceilings on both the first and second floors; a third-floor attic was topped by a rooftop belvedere, from which Barrow could survey his lands and look out as far as the Mississippi River several miles away. 

Sitting in the midst of 12,000 acres, Greenwood was surrounded by vast fields of crops tended by up to 750 slaves.  Ruffin Barrow operated his own sugar and syrup mills on the place, and there were a large number of outbuildings and cabins.

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