Plantation  Home  Information

 
Below you will find some more information on all the homes shown on the Plantation page.  Also some photographs when available.  They are listed in alphabetical order.  Use the back button on your browser to return to the Plantation page or click on Back at the bottom of this page.  If you need more information please email me.  Note:  This page is still under construction and I will continue to add information and photos as time permits.

 

Ashland/Belle Helene:   This plantation home, the slave quarters and the sugar mill were built between 1838-1841 on property that was once part of Linwood plantation.  It was jointly owed by Theophilus Minor and William Kenner.  It is Classical Revival in style and the home was built for William Kenner's son Duncan.  Duncan named the home after Henry Clay's home.  The home is  symmetrically columned on all four sides, with an oak allee at the rear that once led to numerous outbuildings.  Formal gardens used to grace the front of the home.  The property, owned by Shell Chemical, is being restored by them.  It is open to the public only during the annual tour of homes.

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Bay Tree: Bay Tree plantation is a Creole cottage built in the 1850's by Edmond Trepagnier.  It is located on the west side of the Mississippi River near Vacherie, La. and is just next door to the famous Oak Alley plantation.  It is a bed & breakfast with 1 suite and 1 room in the main house.  In the Rene' cottage there is a Victorian room (bridal suite), the Magnolia room, the Cajun room, and the New Orleans room (2 single beds).  The Dr. Vignes' cottage is 1 bedroom with bath, parlor, dining and kitchen area.  See Louisiana Links page for contact information.

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Beaufort:

Bocage:   The English translation for this name is Shady Retreat.  This home was built in 1801 by Marius Bringier as a raised Creole cottage but was remodeled 1837 in the Classical Revival style.  It is now a square mansion with a central hallway.  It has six large and two smaller columns across the front of the home.  This is a private home but sometimes it is open to the public during the local tour of homes.

Butler Greenwood:

Catapla:  The orginal home was destroyed by fire and the present home was built in 1835 by William J. Fort and his wife Sally.  Sally was the daughter of Sarah Turnbull of Rosedown Plantation.  Most of the furniture in Capalpa was orginally made or bought for Rosedown.  A copy of John Audubon's portrait of Eliza Pirrie is found in the home.  Along with beautiful china, silver, porcelain, and antiques.  The grounds include live oak trees planted as early as 1814.  There is a pond with an island in the center.  During the Civil War priceless objects were hidden in this pond.  The home is still lived in by descendants of the orginal family. 

Cottage: This home was built in 1795 by John Allen and Patrick Holland on a Spanish land grant.  It was then purchased in 1811 by Judge Thomas Butler and was lived in by the Butler family until it was bought by J. E. Brown in 1951.  General Andrew Jackson and his staff stayed here in 1815 on their way north after the Battle Of New Orleans.  Many other old buildings remain on the grounds today.  Among them are:  the judge's law office, the kitchen, the milk house, the saddle room and the stable.  The home today is owned and operated by the heirs of Mr. and Mrs. J. E. Brown.

Destrehan: This is the oldest documented plantation house in the Mississippi Valley.  The raised Creole home was built over the years of  1787-1790 for Robert de Logny by a free man of color named Charles.  The symmetrical wings were added by 1810 when the home was then owned by Jean Noel Destrehan, de Logny's son-in-law.  In the late 1950's the home was abandoned and in bad shape.  In 1971 Amoco Oil, who owned the home and surrounding land, responded to pleas from local preservationists and donated the home and four acres to the River Road Historical Society.  It was then restored.  The home is open to the public and does give tours in French and it is accessable for the handicap person.  See Louisiana Links page for contact information.

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Emilie: This home was built for Cyprien Chauff in 1882 and named for his daughter.  It is a frame Italianate raised cottage with a cupola crowning the roof line.  The cypress was milled in the town of Plaquemine and shipped across the river on flatboats.  The brick were made on site.  Incriptions in the house identify the contractor, carpenters and the mason by name.  It at one time had fallen to dispair but was rescued and restored in 1960.  In the rear of the property is a vintage building that is said to have once been part of San Franciso plantation.  This is now a private home.

Evergreen: The original home was probably constructed about 1790 and remodeled in 1832 in the Classical Revival style.  Evergreen was built by the same family that built Whitney and the two homes are very simular.  A remodeling added Doric columns, a double curving staircase, fanlighted doorways, and a modified belvedere.  This is the most complete plantation community complex along the River Road.  It includes the home, pigeonniers, garconnieres, the kitchen, guesthouse, privy, office, cemetery, overseers house, and twenty-two slave cabins.  Only the surgar house is missing.  The home fell to ruin in the 1920's but in 1944 it was bought and restored by Matilda Gray of New Orleans.  It is said that 300,000 bricks were ferried across the River from Uncle Sam plantation when it was demolished to help with the restoration.  The home is private but I have been told that some tour operators in the New Orleans area are allowed. 

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Felicity: Built in 1846, Felicity Plantation was a wedding gift to Emma Félicité Aime from her father, the fabled Gabriel Valcour Aime. Valcour Aime, born in St. Charles Parish in 1797, was well-connected in New Orleans and in the St. James Parish plantation country along the Mississippi River. In 1819, he married Josephine Roman, sister of Gov. André Bienvenu Roman, also a sugar planter. A.B. Roman led Louisiana from 1831 to 1835 and again from 1839 to 1844. Roman is credited with championing education and prison reform, and was an opponent of secession. 

The area where Aime and his family lived was settled mostly by French planters and has been called the Acadian Coast to distinguish it from the downriver German Coast, settled in the 1700s. 

Valcour Aime was so wealthy that he was sometimes called the Louis XIV of Louisiana. Besides trading in real estate and raising sugar cane, he was an amateur scientist who experimented with techniques for refining sugar. He is credited with perfecting the vacuum pan method and was one of the only planters who refined sugar directly from cane juice on site. His innovative technique gave him a competitive edge and made him the richest man in Louisiana, with an estate valued in the millions. 

One of the tracts of land that Aime once owned now holds Oak Alley Plantation. Aime bought the property in 1820 and gave it to his wife's brother, Jacques Télésphore Roman, in 1836 in exchange for an aging Roman family home just downriver. J.T. Roman and his wife built a handsome home on the new tract they acquired and called it "Beausejours." Eventually, however, its "allée" of oaks -- planted by an even earlier owner -- earned the plantation the name Oak Alley. 

Aime's diary indicates that he enjoyed competing with his brother-in-law. One account reports that Aime's diary read, "My cane is higher than Jacques' " and, "my oranges are much tastier than his." Perhaps motivated by the desire to outdo him, Aime either improved and expanded the old Roman home or built a new one. The result was a spectacular estate known as "Le Petit Versailles," completed in 1844. 

Le Petit Versailles was the most refined and sophisticated of all plantations, distinguished by elaborate gardens that seemed as well suited to the king's court in France as to a plantation on the Mississippi River. The house was a typical double-galleried building with columns, but had wings on each end that enclosed a rear courtyard. Its gardens were extensive and its hothouses filled with plants, fruits, vegetables and flowers from around the world, all grown for consumption by Aime, his family and their guests. The grounds were managed by gardeners hired away from Versailles. An informal zoo included kangaroos. One passage from "Social Life in Old New Orleans" noted a hill covered entirely in violets. Research by historian Buddy Stall indicates that after future French king Louis Philippe was lavishly entertained by Aime, the two men tossed into the river the gold plates on which they had dined. 

Aime's fortune was at its zenith when his second daughter, Emma Félicité, married Septime Fortier. The planter gave Felicity Plantation to them as a wedding gift, and the Fortiers had 14 children there (although not all lived through childhood.) 

In the early 1850s, they hired Frenchman Elisée Reclus as a live-in tutor. Reclus is described as "the foremost geographer of his epoch and a major figure in the history of anarchist political theory." The tutor chronicled his years at Felicity in a memoir called "Fragment d'un voyage à la Nouvelle Orléans." Scholars of his work believe his years with the Aime-Fortier family were important in the development of his theories as it exposed him to "the cruel inhumanity of slavery." He reportedly left Louisiana because of it, writing that he "could not continue to earn money by tutoring the children of slave holders and thus steal from the Negroes who have truly earned through their sweat and blood the money that I put in my pocket." 

In 1854, Félicité's brother Gabriel died of yellow fever at Le Petit Versailles. The death of his only son crushed the spirit of Valcour Aime, who wrote in his diary, "Let him who wishes continue. My time is finished." Aime suffered more heartbreak when his wife died in 1856 and his youngest daughter died in 1858. It's reported that Aime, in despair, moved into a small cottage on the grounds, spending much of his time praying in a chapel there. Though his fortunes were declining, he donated valuable assets to the Marist fathers in 1861, enabling them to re-open Jefferson College (now Manresa in Convent), which had burned and closed 20 years before. When Aime died in 1867, his business and property were in disarray. The property was soon sold to pay debts. Le Petit Versailles burned in 1920, and today the only vestige of Aime's estate is a historical marker at the side of the road. 

The Fortiers continued to live in St. James Parish as indicated in the 1860 census. But by 1870, they had moved to New Orleans, where Septime was in a wholesale grocery business. In 1880, they lived on Bayou Road with four of their children. Septime died in 1898, and at the time of the 1900 census, Félicité and her unmarried daughter Anna were living at 2642 Dumaine St., the home of daughter Nathalie and Nathalie's husband, Camil Brou. Félicité died in 1905. 

The Bank of the Americas acquired part of Felicity Plantation in 1873, and the property changed hands three times before being sold in 1889 to Saturin Waguespack, a descendant of one of the original settlers of the German Coast and the forbearer of the family that still owns Felicity. 

In 1907, Waguespack merged Felicity with St. Joseph Plantation (in which he had previously owned a one-third interest, along with two cousins) to form the St. Joseph Planting and Manufacturing Corp. Two family members, now in their 90s, make Felicity their home today. The land they live on still bears sugar cane, just as it did when Valcour Aime ruled the Acadian Coast from Le Petit Versailles. 

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Glendale: This is a Creole raised cottage home that was begun in 1802 by David Paine and renovated before the Civil War.  The construction is brick and cypress and some bousillage.  The timbers are hand hewed and pegged.  The home contains impressive millwork, imported octagonal tiles on the ground floor, with walls and wainscoting of brightly colored faux marbre.  A stairway rises from the lower gallery to the second floor and a pigeonnier still remains on the grounds.  This is a private home.

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Graugnard:

Greenwood: The orginal Greenwood plantation was built in 1830 by William Ruffin Barrow.  The home was built of lath and plaster except for the columns which are made of bricks.  It was at that time a 12,000 acre sugar plantation.  The Barrow family was very wealthy and built lots of large plantation homes over the years.  It changed hands over the years and was used as a hospital during the Civil War but most of the out building were destroyed.  In 1960 the home was struck by ligthning and burned to the ground except for the brick columns.  It was purchased along with 300 acres in 1968 by Walton Barnes and his son Richard.  They began a lengthly process of reconstructing it to its former glory.  Greenwood now reflects in the lake again and is open to the public.  This home has been used in quite a few movies including "North and South" which was a television mini-series.

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Homeplace: This home is also known as the Keller House and was built on a Spanish land grant between 1787-1791 for Pierre Gaillard.  The builder is thought to be the same Charles Pacquet who designed Destrehan.  It is a Creole raised home with a wide gallery around all sides.  There were no interior hallways.  The original floor plan is two rooms deep on the ground floor and the upper floor is two deep and four across.  The ground floor is constructed with bricks made on site and the rooms contain Italian marble.  The second floor is constructed of cypress walls filled with bousillage.  The white plaster on the walls are reportedly an inch thick.  P.A. Keller bought the home in 1889 and renovated it.  There is a pecan tree alley that was planted in 1900.  This is a private home. 

Homestead: The present house called Homestead was built in 1915 by George Hill, John Hill's son.  The present home sits further back on the property then the original home did.  The home known as Hill Place retains part of the original Homestead plantation house.  The original two story raised cottage was built between 1800-1820.  In 1917 the original home had to be moved and its brick first story was demolished.  Only ther upper story survives as the current home now known as Hill Place.  These are private homes.

Houmas: The original home, which consisted of four rooms,  is in the rear of the mansion and is joined to it via a carriage way.  It was built in the late 1775 by Alexandre Latil.  The ornate, large Classical Revival mansion was built in 1828 by John Smith Preston.  The grounds are beautiful and contain a gift shop and  two garconnieres.  Some movies filmed here are Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, Moon of the Wolf and the pilot film for the serial Longstreet.  This home is open for tours.  See Louisiana Links page for contact information. 

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Joe Jefferson:

Judge Poche: This is a Victorian Renaissance Revival cottage built in 1866 by Felix Pierre Poche.  It is a Victorian Renaissance Revival cottage with an unusual front dormer.  Felix Poche was a local leader and in his time he was a Democratic Party leader.  He was also a founding member of the American Bar Association.  His Civil War memoirs have been published.  Also on the property is an exterior office and a barrel-slat cistern.  This home is open for tours.  See Louisiana Links page for contact information.

Laura: This home was built in 1805 by Guillaume DuParc.  The home is also sometimes called Waguespack plantation and in the past it has also been called DuParc and Locoul.  It only became known as Laura in 1891.  It is the oldest surviving plantation complex in St. James Parish.  It is now undergoing constant restoration and is open to the public.  The tour is based on a diary written by Laura Locoul and is one of the most interesting tours you can take.  They also have tours in French.  See Louisiana Links page for contact information.

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L'Hermitage: Marius Gringier bought the property in 1804 and put his 15 year old son, Michel in charge of the plantation.  When Michel married in 1812 he started building the home.  He named the home L'Hermitage after Andrew Jackson's home in Tennessee.  The Jackson's actually visited there in 1820.  The Doric columns were added in 1840. This home is considered the oldest extant Classical Revival home in Louisiana.  It is a private home but is open each year during the local tour of homes.

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Madewood:

Magnolia Mound: This is a raised Creole style plantation home built in 1701 as a four room home by John Joyce.  In 1802 Joyce's widow remarried Armand Duplantier and the home was enlarged.  It is said that Prince Murat, son of Caroline Bonaparte, lived at Magnolia Mound in 1837.  But this is not doccumented.  The Prince did own a downriver portion of the property.  The plantation changed hands several times but was farmed until the begining of the 20th century.  In the early 60's the deteriorating home and property was sold to a developer who planned to tear it down and build apartment housing.  A preservation effort saved the home in 1966 and it was restored to the Duplantier era.  The Magnolia Maound overseers home was built in 1860 but was moved about a block closer to the main house.  The two oaks in the front yard are thought to have been planted by John Joyce.  This home is open for tours.  See Louisiana Links page for contact information.

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Malarche: This home was in 1891 by Willie Malarche from materials salvaged from the original mansion.  The original mansion was built by Louis Malarche who also commissioned the building of St. Michael's Church in Convent.  The home was destroyed in 1890 by a levee break.  The home was abandoned in 1925 and fell to ruins until bought in the 1960's by a corporation and restored.  It now belongs to Occidental Chemical Corporation.  It is private but has a historical marker. 

Melrose:
Mount Hope: Mount Hope was built in 1790 by Joseph Sharp and his wife Marianne, where they lived with their three boys and six girls.  The land was originally acquired in the 1770s through a Spanish land grant for 400 acres.  Sharp was one of the leaders of the rebellion known as the West Florida Revolution that ended Spanish rule of the territory in 1810.  His son, Joseph Sharp, Jr., purchased the land from his father in 1811.  The property was expanded to more than 1,200 acres and was sold out of the Sharp family in the 1820s.

Featuring three legacy oak trees on the property, Mount Hope Plantation is one of only two remaining original plantations in Baton Rouge.  In its more than 200-year history, it has changed ownership many times.The owners of Lake House Florist and Lake House Reception Center on Old Hammond Highway in southeast Baton Rouge purchased Mount Hope in 2003. 
The Marinos recently completed a restoration of the home and the property, to include reinforcement of the cypress beams in the understructure, refinishing of the original wood floors, painting the interior and exterior, and beautifying the gardens as well as the outbuildings on the grounds of glorious old Mount Hope. 

They are currently offering the main house and gardens for weddings, receptions, parties, and other special events.  "In addition to weddings and receptions, we also do a lot of tea parties, bridesmaids' luncheons, and brunches," said Lauren.   The outbuildings, including the cottage, caretaker's cottage, and herb house, are available for overnight stays, as Mount Hope is also a charming bed and breakfast.

Mount Hope was built entirely of cypress wood, and its excellent condition today is a testament to the fine old native hardwood.  The home is similar in style and construction to other homes of this era, a simple yet elegant working farmhouse inspired by the houses of the West Indies. 
What is now the home's foyer used to be an open breezeway known as the "dog trot."  Oak doors were added in the 1800s to enclose the hall for additional family living area.  A small stairway was added in the 1940s when the owners at that time took in the attic to provide extra space for the family.  The larger stairway was added some time later.

The only other major addition to the house was to construct the bathrooms and kitchen, which were added when such novel indoor features became popular.  The fireplaces are original, but not the furnishings. While they have period furnishings, they have chosen more ornate pieces than the Sharps would have had because of the weddings and other elegant events they host.

Mount Hope had a great part in the Civil War.It appears that soldiers stayed here and kept their horses at the stockade on the property, using Mount Hope's well as a water source.

Mount Hope is graced with legacy live oak trees estimated to be from 200 to 300 years old.  Other beautiful trees found on the grounds are pear, pecan, cedar, and crepe myrtle.  The lovely rose garden boasts many beautiful varieties of roses.Which was designed for the property within the last five years by a descendant of the original Sharp family.  Just beyond the rose garden is a charming gazebo, which is a popular choice for wedding ceremonies during the spring and fall.
Brimming with history, Mount Hope stands as a beautiful legacy to the storied history of the South.  It is a case where the property is truly worth the paper on which it was written.

This home is a B&B and is open for tours.  See Louisiana Links page for contact information.

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Mulberry: Mulberry Grove was built in 1836 by Dr. Edward Duffel and his Acadian bride.  After the Civil War the property was bought by John Russ who owned Germania Plantation, which was just up river.  The home was in a state of dispair when rediscovered in 1951 being used as a hay barn.  It has been restored as a Classical Revival mansion.  It shares the property with a red barn and four small tenant quarters, circa 1890, located along the river road.  This is a private home and working plantation but is opened to the public during the tour of homes each spring. 

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Myrtles:

New Hope: This plantation was first owned by the Trasimond Landry family in 1817.  The raised plantation house was built in the 1840's.  New Hope remained in the Landry family until it was sold to John Burnside after the war.  It is now a private home.

Nottoway:

Oak Alley: This property was first documented as a Spanish land grant and became Valcour Aime's in 1820.  The home, a Classical Revival, was built in 1837-39 for Jacques Telespore Roman who was Aime's brother-in-law.  The quarter mile long allee' of Live Oaks are thought to date back to the early 18th century.  It is thought that a French colonial settler planted them and had a modest dwelling at the end of the allee'.  There are 28 oaks and 28 columns that surround the house.  River boat captians gave it the name of Oak Alley.  The home stayed in the Roman family until after the Civil War when it was auctioned off.  In 1881 it was purchased by Antonio Sobral.  He in turn sold it in 1905 to the Hardin family who took special care of the oaks.  The Stewart family bought it in 1925 and are responsible for restoring the home and adding new buildings.  When Mrs. Stewart died in 1972 it became the property of the Oak Alley Foundation.  There have been several movies made at Oak Alley.  A slave gardener named Antoine grafted pecan trees there in 1847 and created the first named variety.  The Paper Shell pecan as it was called led to commercial production of pecans.  This home is open for tours.  See Louisiana Links page for contact information.

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Oakley:

Ormond: A Louisiana colonial style plantation that was built in 1790 by Pierre Trepagnier.  The two wings were added between 1811 and 1820.  The plantation was named Ormond in 1805 after the Irish ancestral castle by the second owner of the home, Richard Butler.  Butler died of yellow fever in 1820 and the home was inherited by sister Rebecca McCutchon.  The home stayed in the McCutchon family until the mid 1870's.  The home is open to the public for tours.  See Louisiana Links page for contact information.

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Parlange:

Poplar: The main house at Poplar Grove was built by Thomas Sully as the Bankers Pavilion at the 1884 Cotton Exposition in New Orleans.  It was sold at auction in 1886 and bought by the owner of Poplar Grove.  It was then moved upriver by barge to the plantation.  Poplar Grove was an operational sugar plantation until the 1970's.  Down Scale House Road you can see the remains of 1850's quarter houses, some later dated labors' houses, a blacksmiths shop and a church.  The old mill was demolished 1995.  The home is private but you can see the old quarters from the road.

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Rosedown:

Rosewood:

San Francisco: This home was built in 1856 by Edmond Marmillion and was known at that time as St. John de Marmillion.  Edmond died shortly after completion and the plantation was then run by his oldest son Valsin.  Valsin and his wife redecorated the home and it was completed in 1860.  They then began to call the home "Sans Frusquins" which means "down to my last red cent".  Valsin ran the plantation until his death in 1871 at which time his wife took over.  She sold the home to Achille Bougere in 1879.  It was then that the home became known as San Francisco.  Next the property was owned by Ingraham Oil who sold it to Marathon Oil in 1976.  The home is now in the hands of River Road Preservation and has been restored to its 1860 grandeur.  It contains 5 ceiling frescoes, original paint colors, faux marbre and faux bois.  The home is open for tours.  See Louisiana Links page for contact information.

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Shadows:

Smithfield:

St. Emma: This home is located on Bayou Safourche just outside of the town of Donaldsonville.  It was originally called Kock's Plantation.  It is a Classical Revival home built in 1850.  It was owned from 1854-1869 by Charles A. Kock.  A large Civil War skirmish took place here in 1863 in which the Confederates won.  This is a private home but is opened to the public during the tour of homes each spring at which time mock battles are staged.

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St. Joseph: This home was built in 1820 by Dr. Cazamie Mericq.  In 1847 the home was bought by Alexis Ferry and his wife Josephine, a daughter of Valcour Amie.  They called the house Home Place or Josephine House.  They remodeled it in 1858.  Ferry enclosed the first floor and added two rooms on each end of the upper floor.  Ferry's widow sold the home to Edward Gray who resold it to Joseph Waguespack.  Outbuildings still remain on the property.  The St. Joseph Plantation Store next door, which is still open for business, was part of the plantation.  This is a private home at this time. 

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Tally Ho: Parish records show that Tally Ho was owned by Jean Fleming, a free man of color, sometime before 1855.  There were several more owners after Fleming.  John D. Murrell of Virginia bought the plantation in 1848 and it has remained in the family ever since.  The house is said to have been moved back from the river twice and the main house burned in 1945.  The name Tally Ho is said to reflect Murrell's fox-hunting background.   The current house is what was used as the overseers home.  It is a raised Acadian Cottage with Classical Revival influnces.  The plantation dock was the site of showboat performances.  The New Sensations, the first of the Mississippi River troubadours, stopped there in 1878 to preform a vaudeville type show.  The barn, office and a slave cabin remain down a side road.  This home is private.

Tezcuco:

Whitney: This raised Creole plantation was built by Jean Jacques Haydel in 1790.  His ancestors had settled in the area in the 1750's.  The home is solid brick on the ground floor and bousillage on the second floor.  It was considered one of the best examples of painted wood architecture along the river.  Dominique Canove, an Italian immigrant artist from New Orleans, is thought to have painted the wall murals on the front and rear galleries in 1850.  Numerous outbuildings still remain although many were damaged in 1965 by hurricane Betsey.  The property is for sale by the current owner, Formosa Plastics.

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