Ammadelle was constructed for Thomas Evans Bedgegood Pegues, who in 1856 moved his family from Lafayette Springs to Oxford. Pegues’ grandfather had emigrated from England to Charleston, South Carolina in 1735. He amassed a plantation that was some 20,000 acres in size. Pegues’ father had moved to Dallas County, Alabama and owned a large plantation. Pegues came to Lafayette County in 1850 and had over 2,000 acres of farmland near Lafayette Springs.

When Pegues decided to build a home on North Lamar in Oxford he studied various architectural design books before selecting number 32 in the design book Villas and Cottages by Calvert Vaux. He traveled to New York and met with Vaux. He visited a home on the Hudson River that had been constructed to the design he had settled on for his home. The design was based on Italian models from Tuscany with the addition of broad verandas to help battle the fierce Mississippi sun. Vaux estimated that the total cost of the house would be between fourteen and fifteen thousand dollars. This was an incredible sum for the time, considering that no house in Oxford built prior to the Civil War had cost more than a few thousand to build.

Pegues was the person that first planted the oak trees along North Lamar. The trees that he planted have long since died, but they have been replaced by the ones now standing. He had the bricks for the home made on site by his slaves. The home also has a secret room in which Confederate soldiers were hidden during the war. The home has two very unusual features for a house built during this period. It has closets and the kitchen was not in a separate structure, as most houses of the period.

Construction on the home started in 1859 but ceased during the Civil War and restarted after the war. Pegues was a trustee of the University of Mississippi at the time and was instrumental in saving the university from federal torches in 1862 and 1864. His home was the last home the Union troops passed on their way out of town in December 1864. A fire was started in the home by the Yankees but was extinguished by members of the Pegues family and a few house servants. Charred floor planks can still be seen in a second floor room.

In the 1880s the home was sold to Charles Roberts who gave it the name “Edgecomb”. There is no record as to where Roberts came up with the name. Around the turn of the century the home was sold to Bem Price who purchased the home and fifty acres around it for $30,000. Price was the cashier of the Bank of Oxford and a wealthy investor and trader. He changed the name to “Ammadelle”, which were the names of his sister Amma and his wife Delle.