The purchasers of Airliewood on Nov. 26, 1996 (DB 278:618) were attorney Lester G. Fant III and his wife, Barbara G. Howick Fant of Washington, D. C..  His family had owned the Clapp-Fant house on Salem (now known as Athenia ) since 1927, and his grandfather had grown up at Montrose, when it was the home of Judge James Thornton Fant. A devoted preservationist, Barbara Howick Fant is responsible for stabilizing the old Coxe mansion and holding it for a suitable buyer in a sense for saving the house.

She made the 1997 pilgrimage a gala event.  She opened the Clapp-Fant house, in the mist of its refurbishing, for the tour, filled both that house and Airliewood with guests, many from a great distance, and engaged the Kate Freeman Clark Museum for a grand dinner.  She received in a replica of a dress worn by Julia Dent Grant. Her sister-in-law Nancy Fant Smith wore a copy of Charlotte Bronte's second-day dress, and my wife fit into the lavender flowered dress that Jean Dean had worn in pilgrimages and in her portrait painted by noted artist Sam Gholson, a Holly Springs native.  For the next pilgrimage, Barbara Fant had the old surrey in the Dean garage restored and drove it all over town, transporting pilgrimage hostesses.

In 1999, as part of a divorce settlement, Barbara Fant gained full title to the Coxe place.  During her ownership, she had a section of the manson's east wall rebuilt and the entrance gates restored after they were destroyed by an impaired driver, and she placed both the Clapp-Fant and Coxe houses under historic preservation easements. She then advertised the Coxe mansion nationally and waited to sell until she had fully appreciative buyers committed to full restoration.

On August 30, 2002,  Airliewood was purchased by Memphis banker Joe W. Overstreet, an Oxford native, and his wife Kathy.  They immediately engaged restoration architect Sam Kaye of Columbus to plan the project.  He designed a compatible stucco structure behind the mansion, where the Overstreets were to live while the restoration of the gothic villa was completed.  They also employed a color analyst to discover the original exterior and interior paint colors and planned an eventual reconstruction of the gothic dependencies shown in the 1858 painting.

Early in the project, the engineer's report revealed that the entire back wall of the mansion was at risk, and it was rebuilt. The first dramatic change came in the spring of 2004, when the carefully replicated fence once again spanned the Salem frontage, replacing the original that had been standing only in pieces.

All additions to the original mansion had been removed, the back addition roofed in, and work begun on the mansion when, on August 4, 2004, workers removing paint over a window in the dining room wing ignited a fire that smoldered unnoticed for an hour as it spread through the attic and into the main part of the house. 

According to the local newspaper The South Reporter, Joe Overstreet, summoned from Memphis, was short of words as he looked skyward watching the fire fighters.  With temperature in the mid-nineties outside and double that within the house, the efficient firemen, using their snorkel truck and an on-site construction snorkel lift, were finally able to put out the fire.  "I feel we are really lucky we didn t lose it,"  Overstreet said at the end of one of the longest afternoons of his life.  "It would have been a loss for us, but it would have been a much greater loss for Holly Springs.  It is irreplaceable, that kind of history. General Grant had Christmas dinner with his officers in this dining room in 1862."

The Overstreets moved into the back addition in March of 2005.  Work continued on mansion that included replicating the original porches, porte cochere, and  balconies.  It was completed in 2006.  With its rich history, Airliewood, carefully restored and furnished in keeping with the period of its construction, is again one of Mississippi's treasures.