Miller and Bella Gherke told Greenville Rotarians on Thursday that their family’s growing portfolio of hospitality projects in Leland is rooted in a belief that the Mississippi Delta’s history and culture can draw visitors from around the world.
The husband-and-wife team, who manage the Thompson House Inn and related ventures for Bella’s parents, Jerry and Misty Galloway, traced the couple’s move from Missouri to Leland and the evolution of the 1902 home from private residence to bed-and-breakfast, event venue and now a full-service inn with a French Creole restaurant, handcrafted cocktail bar and basement speakeasy. They said the business remains family owned and operated, with the Gherkes handling everything from construction work and historic rehabilitation to social media and on-site hospitality.
Miller Gherke walked club members through the Thompson House’s past, noting that Joseph Wood Thompson, a prominent early Leland businessman and planter, built the home in 1902 and later rebuilt it in 1920 amid the prosperity of “dollar cotton.” The house also figured in one of the Delta’s most notorious crimes, when Thompson’s daughter was convicted of killing her mother, Idella, with garden shears at a nearby residence years after Thompson’s death, a case Gherke said once drew crowds and picnic baskets to the courthouse lawn. Ownership later passed to the Jones and Upshur families before a group of Leland couples bought the deteriorating property in 2013 to “save the Thompson House” and convert it into a bed-and-breakfast and event space.
The Gherkes said the Galloway family purchased the property after the original innkeeper died, then relaunched it as the Thompson House Inn with four guest rooms, private baths in each room, the upstairs Library Bar and, most recently, the downstairs speakeasy. Future plans include finishing the previously unused third floor to add four more guest rooms and converting a nearby house where the couple has been living into an additional accommodation, which would bring the total number of rooms on the property to nine.
Bella Gherke emphasized the economic ripple effects of their projects, saying the inn has created jobs for local high school students and helps feed traffic to downtown Leland shops and restaurants as guests explore the community between meals and cocktails. Visitors come not only from across the United States but from overseas, including Europe, to experience the blues, agriculture and culture of the Delta, she said.
The couple also previewed the 1902 Brocante, a downtown building across from the post office and next to Trustmark Bank that once housed an automotive repair shop and later a farm equipment dealership, beauty shop, law office and appliance store. They plan to transform the 5,600‑square-foot structure into a Parisian-style bistro with soups, sandwiches, pastries and specialty coffees, a full floral market offering everything from prom corsages to casket sprays, and a curated antiques shop stocked with pieces the family has sourced themselves rather than on consignment.
Renovation has been slow, they acknowledged, because the building had been subdivided into three spaces that they are reuniting into one, rebuilding the recessed entry and moving structural posts to restore a 1920s-era facade, all while uncovering surprises typical of historic rehabs. Bella Gherke said she has stopped promising opening dates but hopes to welcome customers to the Brocante in early 2026.
Looking further ahead, Miller Gherke described plans for another Leland bed-and-breakfast in the 1917 Breach home, a craftsman-style house once owned by the operator of the town’s ice plant that the family acquired out of foreclosure in 2024. The vision calls for a high-end inn with a resident butler, cocktail hour and an immersive experience that he said would “go even nicer than the Thompson House” while giving Leland badly needed additional rooms during events such as Christmas on Deer Creek.
Throughout the program, the Gherkes thanked club members and the wider Delta community for embracing them and their projects since they arrived from Missouri. “There’s something about the Delta that draws people back,” Miller said, adding that their goal is to preserve its historic buildings while giving both locals and travelers new places to gather, dine and stay.
