The home of Mississippi’s only Nobel Prize winner will be open to the public this weekend for the first time in two years.

William Faulkner’s home, Rowan Oak, in Oxford will open Sunday at noon after a nearly $1 million restoration.

The opening Sunday will kick off the 31st annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, which will run until July 29.

Rowan Oak, located just minutes from the Ole Miss campus, has been kept just as it was at Faulkner’s death in 1962.

The grounds of the house include five buildings surrounded by a wooded area, Bailey’s Woods that includes a trail, constructed by local boy scouts, connecting the house to the campus. The front walkway is lined with cedar trees that were planted in the 1940s.

The interior of the house includes Faulkner’s office where he outlined his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel &uot;A Fable&uot; on the wall.

Rowan Oak Curator Bill Griffith said Faulkner’s house would offer good perspective to someone familiar with the antebellum homes in Natchez.

&uot;Someone should come from Natchez so they can see what an antebellum house up here looks like and compare it,&uot; Griffith said. &uot;You can do it in one stop here at Rowan Oak.&uot;

Griffith pointed out that the southern portion of the state had considerably more wealth than those in the northern portion during antebellum times.

The house has drawn between 85-100 on the weekends even during construction. About 200-330 are expected for the Faulkner Conference.

This year’s conference topic is &uot;Faulkner and Material Culture,&uot; and will include lectures and discussions by literary scholars and critics.

Faulkner fans can complete the Oxford Faulkner tour with stops at the Thompson-Chandler house, the model for the house in &uot;The Sound and the Fury,&uot; the Lafayette County Courthouse on the Square, also referenced in &uot;The Sound and the Fury&uot; and Faulkner’s grave at St. Peter’s Cemetery.

Rowan Oak is open for self-guided tours Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Sundays. The grounds are open during all daylight hours. There is no admission but a suggested donation of $5 is appreciated.

Guided tours are available by appointment.

Other Oxford attractions include the Ole Miss campus and the Square, common stomping ground for Faulkner. Square Books, a locally owned bookstore, has been frequently called one of the nation’s finest bookstores and is one of the town’s oldest buildings.

Author John Grisham’s house is also located on Mississippi 6 coming into Oxford.