Sugar Plantation on Bayou Teche BAYSIDE PLANTATION · Bayside Plantation, Jeanerette, LA – Property Information Packet – Page 1 Peter W. Patout, Listing Agent Historic House Specialist

Bayside Plantation, Jeanerette, LA – Property Information Packet – Page 1

Peter W. Patout, Listing Agent Historic House Specialist Licensed in Louisiana and Mississippi Cell: (504) 481-4790

Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com

Talbot Historic Properties 608 Congress Street, New Orleans, LA 70117

office: (504) 415-9730

Sugar Plantation on Bayou Teche

BAYSIDE PLANTATION Built: 1850

Greek Revival house on 11.8+/- acres Jeanerette, Iberia Parish, Louisiana

Surrounded by a grove of ancient live oak trees draped in Spanish moss.

Reduced to $850,000



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

COPYRIGHT © 2018 PETER W. PATOUT

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THE INFORMATION CONTAINED WITHIN

IS FOR USE STRICTLY BY PETER W. PATOUT/TALBOT HISTORIC PROPERTIES

AND MAY NOT BE DUPLICATED WITHOUT SIGNED WRITTEN CONSENT

UNAUTHORIZED USE OF THIS MATERIAL WILL BE SUBJECT TO LEGAL ACTION AT USERS EXPENSE



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 6 Disclaimer about property information packet

SALE OF REAL ESTATE 7 Public information Interior information: main house

PROPERTY MAPS 8

PHOTOGRAPHS 12

FLOOR PLANS 26 First floor Second floor

INCLUSIONS 28

HISTORICAL IMAGES 29 Photographs from the Robert Lee Roane, Jr. family papers Photographs from Louisiana Digital Library

PROPERTY DESCRIPTION 33

A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF COL. FRANCIS DUBOSE RICHARDSON (1812-1901) 34

GENEALOGY OF COL. RICHARDSON (1812-1901) 40

BAYSIDE OWNERSHIP CHRONOLOGY 42

CONTEXT MAPPING 43

BAYSIDE ENVIORNS 44

NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES (1987) 50

BAYSIDE IN THE MEDIA 52

REALTOR & BROKER BIOGRAPHIES 57

BIBLIOGRPAHY & PHOTO CREDITS 59



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

INTRODUCTION

DISCLAIMER ABOUT PROPERTY INFORMATION PACKET The information set forth in this packet is believed to be correct. However, the mortgagee/owner of this property and Talbot Historic Properties make no warranties or guarantees as to the accuracy of this information. Buyers shall rely entirely on their own information, judgement and inspection of the property and records. This property is to be sold on an as-is, where-is basis, with all faults. Listing Agent, Peter W. Patout discloses he is acting solely as an agent for the mortgagee in the marketing, negotiations, and sale of this property. The purchase(s) agree that the mortgagee and agents make no warranties of any kind of any kind regarding the use, condition, or value of the property.



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

SALE OF REAL ESTATE PUBLIC INFORMATION Address: 9805 Old Jeanerette Road Jeanerette, Louisiana Built: 1850 Original owner: Francis D. Richardson (1812-1901) Land: approximately 12 acres. Taxes: 2017 - $276.29 Municipal water, septic tank INTERIOR INFORMATION: MAIN HOUSE Total sq.ft.: 5,917 Living sq.ft.: 4,047 Total Rooms: 18 Bedrooms: 4 Kitchen: 1 Bathrooms: 3.5 Fireplaces: 6 (one functional) Ceilings: 1st floor- 10’9”

2nd floor- 11’8” Floors: Antique long leaf pine and cypress Add’l Buildings: Stable, old Milk House New Asphalt Shingle Roof installed 2011 VICINITY TO AIRPORTS New Iberia, LA: 21 minutes to Acadiana Regional Airport Lafayette, LA: 38 minutes to Lafayette Regional Airport Baton Rouge, LA: 1 hour 35 minutes to Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport New Orleans, LA: 1 hour 50 minutes to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport Houston, TX: 4 hours to George Bush Intercontinental Airport REGION Average Annual High Temperature: 78 degrees Average Annual Low Temperature: 58.5 degrees Average Annual Precipitation / Rainfall: 63 inches



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

PROPERTY MAPS

Acreage is 11.8+- acres



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

Location map of Bayside in Jeanerette, LA (courtesy National Register of Historic Places)



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

Property sketch of Bayside in relation to Bayou Teche. (courtesy National Register of Historic Places)



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

Aerial of Bayside Plantation Property.

14+/- acres are included in the sale of Bayside, as indicated in the yellow shaded area.



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

PHOTOGRAPHS

EXTERIOR



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

REAR

The brick-paved driveway in rear leads up to an enclosed double gallery that looks out onto the back pasture



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

GALLERY

The front porch communicates the home’s Greek Revival style immediately upon approach with its classic Doric columns and double galleries that continues to watch over Bayou Teche since its inception.



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

CENTER HALL ENTRANCE

Bayside’s entryway boasts original ceiling medallions with a period hanging lantern as well as the noteworthy, charming feature of separated sidelights that are incongruous with the trim of the double door and transom – a rarity for homes of

this style



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

The front hall features the original staircase as well as Greek Revival trim detailing on all interior openings



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

DOUBLE PARLOR

DINING

The original double parlor features matching Carrara marble mantle pieces and Greek Revival trim detailing

The dining room also retains its original Carrara marble mantle and has unique double doors



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

SCREENED-IN PATIO

The modern screened back porch has refinished cypress flooring and antique ceiling fans. It is one of the largest screened-in porches in the south, with approximately 750 sq. ft. of total floor area



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

FIRST FLOOR OFFICE

The office on the first floor has a rustic feel with cypress floors and expansive built-in bookshelves



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

SECOND FLOOR CENTER HALL

The upstairs hall continues to highlight the original banister as it leads between bedrooms as well as out to a double gallery on either end



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

BEDROOMS

This second floor bedroom continues to showcase the Greek Revival style of the home with its original Classical wood mantle pieces and Greek Revival trim.

The other three 2nd floor bedrooms (for a total of four bedrooms) also have the Classical mantle piece and Greek Revival trim as well as original transoms over the doors



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

BATHROOMS The custom master suite features two lavatories, a

shower and toilet, and two large closets plus ample storage



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

MILK HOUSE

On the home’s grounds remains one of two surviving Milk Houses in Louisiana from the 19th century, which were built to prepare and store dairy products – presently it is utilized as a tool shed



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

BARN & STABLES

Also on the property is a rustic barn built c.1960 that houses stables adjacent to a bucolic pasture and three paddocks



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

FLOOR PLANS

FIRST FLOOR

Measured by Peter Patout, Mathew Roy and Katherine Roy. March 2017. Scale: 1/8” = 1ft.



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

SECOND FLOOR

Measured by Peter Patout, Mathew Roy and Katherine Roy. March 2017. Scale: 1/8” = 1ft.



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

INCLUSIONS INCLUSIONS

• 3 antique sugar kettles • Antique granite stones • 3 antique iron sugar mill gears labeled,

“Albania, Loisel, Jeanerette” • Washer, Dryer, Stove, Refrigerator • Plantation bell

Three antique iron sugar mill gears

One of three antique sugar kettles

Plantation bell



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

HISTORICAL IMAGES PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE ROBERT LEE ROANE, JR. FAMILY PAPERS (1930s-1950s)



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE LOUISIANA DIGITAL LIBRARY (1930s)



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

PROPERTY DESCRIPTION Bayside Plantation is located on Bayou Teche, “Louisiana’s Most Famous Bayou”.1 It is approximately 100 miles from both New Orleans’ Louis Armstrong Airport and Baton Rouge, and 250 miles from Houston, Texas. Bayside is a well-maintained and historic rural estate on 14+- acres in Jeanerette, Louisiana, near New Iberia and the renowned Avery Island, where Tabasco Hot Sauce is made.2 In 1987, Bayside Plantation was listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its architectural significance in the Greek Revival style and distinctively being one of only four two-story Greek Revival mansions with two-story masonry columns in Bayou Teche Country (The three others being Oaklawn, Shadows-on-the-Teche, and Arlington.) In 1850, Colonel Francis Dubose Richardson (1812-1901) built Bayside Plantation. Richardson was a successful state legislator prior to the Civil War and it is said he was good friends with the famous author Edgar Allen Poe. During the Civil War, Richardson is credited with floating a barge of burning hay in the direct path of Union gunboats during the Bayou Teche Country Campaign. Bayside Plantation was aptly named for an old grove of Bay trees that one graced the property. Today, the estate is surrounded by sprawling ancient moss laden live oak trees. The two-story white brick structure is fronted by picturesque upper and lower galleries supported by six full height Tuscan columns, which are set on high pedestals. On the upper gallery, an ornate wooden balustrade runs between them. The transoms and sidelights of the doors are set into the recesses of thick brick walls. Bayside displays an “American” floor plan consisting of a central hall with two rooms on each side on both floors. The house has four bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms. In 1967, the upper-rear gallery was enclosed for additional rooms. The walls of these rooms are of wide wooden boards from ancient heart pine trees that once stood in the backyard before being downed by Hurricane Hilda. The rear gallery of Bayside contains a large screen porch that has served generations of Southern families. Original features at Bayside Plantation include: three Carrara marble mantels, two wood mantels, extensive Greek Key molding, Cypress doors with original hardware, a cherry and walnut staircase and beautiful long-leaf Pine flooring. The house retains much of its original blown glass window panes. In the early 1960s a side wing and large barn were constructed. Behind the plantation, a masonry Milk House remains as the only 19th century dependency of the estate.

1 Shane K. Bernard’s “Teche”. 2 See Tabasco.com http://www.tabasco.com/avery-island/

http://www.tabasco.com/avery-island/



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF COL. FRANCIS DUBOSE RICHARDSON (1812-1901) By R. Paul Fitch III, Old Attakapas District Historian, June 13, 2017 Bayside's builder, Colonel Francis DuBose Richardson, was born August 20, 1812, on his family's plantation in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, between Woodville and Centreville. His parents, Lt. Col. John Gaulden Richardson and Margaret DuBose, migrated to Mississippi in 1810 from South Carolina's Sumpter District; in 1829, the family moved to what is now Iberia Parish, Louisiana. Francis is reputed to have been a classmate of Edgar Allan Poe, but as Poe only attended the University of Virginia for one semester, this connection may be tenuous at best. In 1839, 26 year old Francis married Bethia Frances Liddell, who also originated from Wilkinson County, Mississippi; they went on to have six children, only two of whom lived to adulthood. Farming and family were not his only interests: Richardson began serving in the Louisiana State Legislature in the 1840's, and introduced legislation funding the Chalmette Battlefield monument, and he was also a regional correspondent for the Daily Picayune, a New Orleans newspaper. Although 1850 is the date traditionally associated with the building of Bayside, F.D. Richardson's plantation journals include entries regarding the difficulties involved in setting up the plantation, among which is an 1846 entry noting the loss of 30,000 bricks due to bad weather, a clue to when construction may have begun on the house. Francis' life was not without tragedy; after the deaths of three of their six children, Bethia Liddell Richardson died in 1852, leaving Francis a widower with three young children. The youngest, Margaret was sent to live with relatives, but died only a year later.

Francis D. Richardson portrait. Courtesy of R. Paul Fitch, III, Old Attakapas District Historian.



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

Perhaps his greatest political achievement was the passage of his 1852 bill which appropriated funds for the building of the Louisiana Asylum for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind (pictured left, painted in 1859 by Marie Adrien Persac), which was motivated by and a tribute to his younger brother John Wesley Richardson, who was blinded early in life. In thanks, the trustees of the Asylum commissioned Theodore Sidney Moise to paint a monumental 1854 portrait of Francis DuBose Richardson, which hung in the facility's Reception Room, and is now in family hands.

That same year, Francis married again, to Elizabeth Dunbar Holmes of Adams County, Mississippi, who bore him eight children, three of whom predeceased him. Interestingly, two of his unmarried daughters, Helen Lee and Mary Louise, died as missionaries in China. In 1862, in response to the arrival of the Union army in the area, Richardson suspended operations at Bayside and moved the family to another plantation he had in the woods on Bayou Mallet in St. Landry Parish. After the depredations of the war, Richardson sold Bayside for $70.000.00 to Col. John Winthrop, a New Orleans lawyer, and moved his family to Springfield, Missouri. Bayside again changed hands just three short years later when Winthrop sold it to a Mrs. Belt of Georgia for $80.000.00, and by 1877, it was in the hands of H. C. Walker. Other owners ensued until the mid-1930's when the property was purchased by Robert Lee Roane, Sr, and his wife Marie Farrell Roane; the Roane family claims the longest period of ownership. (After fleeing for their lives from Mexico, they arrived in Louisiana in 1935 and purchased Bayside. It was their home until it was passed to their son, Robert Lee Roane Jr. in 1962. He passed away in March of 2017.) In 1889, Elizabeth Dunbar Holmes Richardson died in Springfield, and Francis spent his remaining years between Missouri and Louisiana, spending six months of every year visiting relatives. A prolific writer, his 1889 work, "Fifty Years Ago Along the Teche" gives great insight into the economics, mores and people of this area in the mid-19th century. For family purposes only, he wrote and published his memoirs in 1895, which delineate his ancestry and the settlement of southern Mississippi and Louisiana. Death claimed Francis DuBose Richardson on June 15, 1901; he had been visiting his daughter, Bethia (Mrs. Donelson Caffery) and died at her home, Haifleigh House, in Franklin. Bayside's first master lies buried nearby in a small family cemetery. Sources

Photo courtesy of www.the-athenaeum.org



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, Louisiana Historical Association Memoirs of Francis D. Richardson, self-published Richardson Family Record, Frank L. Richardson Bayside Plantation Records, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill FROM THE SOUTHERN BLOUVAC

“The Teche Country Fifty Years Ago” (March 1886) By F. D. Richardson, first owner and builder of Bayside Plantation Fifty years ago the Creole population of southwestern Louisiana represented the wealth and power of their section. The planters generally had an easy time of it; very few of them in debt, they fared sumptuously every day on their own raising, and “Solomon in all his glory” never dreamed of their beautiful cottonade. They moved about in good style and equipage, there was nothing of the snob, no servants in livery, or aristocracy aping, so disgusting to true Americans everywhere. And in those years, as now, they were polished people; after the similitude of their ancestry, jealous and sensitive of their honor, and brace in defending it. Many a slur is cast upon their language, and often by those who speak only English, and that very imperfectly. The educated Creoles of Louisiana have all the advantages of the best schools of our own and foreign lands, and, using the same books, writing the same language every day at home, it does indeed seem strange that they “can not be understood.” And because they speak to inferiors in a way to be best understood, as we often do to children, they are represented as speaking in an unknown tongue. They were not a pious people, the men, in the estimation of the orthodox American. Indeed, it was a common sentiment among them that “religion was a good thing for the wife and children, but for the men, no use;” and in this respect they acted out their convictions by going with their families to church and waiting patiently outside until mass was over. In those days they could hardly be considered well informed in religious matters generally, and it can not be denied that the historic pioneer circuit-preacher was regarded with no little suspicion, and was “in perils oft.” Alas, poor Richmond Nolley: who so barely escaped drowning, at the hands of a mob in St. Martinsville. He was rescued by the good old Catholic priest, only to be lost in a swamp a few years after; found dead, beside a log, on his knees. Very few of the Creoles of that day spoke English, or spoke it very imperfectly, which was no doubt the main cause of the little social intercourse there was between them and their American neighbors planters of the same social position who had settled among them. Their house servants were used often as interpreters, for it seems no trouble for a negro to learn a language, such as it is. Among themselves, they carried sociability to an extent rarely met with elsewhere. For years it was their custom in Chicot Noir neighborhood and vicinity to meet at each other’s houses every Sunday, and have a good time generally, “eat, drink, and be merry.” A description of one of these gatherings may serve as a sort of photograph of Teche Creole society in the long-ago. This was at the residence of Nicolas Loisel (one of the very best representatives of Creole character), at which all were Creoles or Frenchmen, except this guest of his son.



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

The company all came up in good time and style and with cordial greetings, and were soon enjoying themselves, each in his own way. Some talked crops, some played cards and dominoes, and seemed to be doing their best to amuse themselves and each other, until about two o’clock, when dinner, the great business of the day, was announced. And here, while they are skirmishing at the table with two or three on the open shell, before the main attack, let us look back and reproduce the Creole’s daily menu. Breakfast with them was a small affair – café au lait (boiled milk and coffee), an egg or two, and sometimes a light chip or small bird on toast, with excellent snow white bread, which every Creole mistress knew how to have baked in her own Dutch oven. Thus fortified they were all right until one or two o’clock, their hour of dining, with no lunch, spoiling appetite, between. Dinner was their meal in chief, the grand center of all their culinary ambition; and, as the world moves, there is reason to fear these old-fashioned Creole dinners will in time take their place among the lost arts, so we intend to rescue this one from oblivion, complete in all its appointments. As usual on extra occasions, extra servants were called in, and the white-aproned darkies were thick around the table, “ministers extraordinary” in their own estimation, watching like hawks to take away your plate. The feast began in earnest with their far-famed Creole dish – not national, but State sovereign – Gumbo, of African descent. I did not count courses, they were “distinct as the billows, yet one as the sea,” and each billow was enough to drown a common appetite. Am not much connoisseur, and less epicure, and only know how good a thing is by the old “proof of the pudding” way, but I do know that one of those old, long practiced Creole darky cooks, under the inspiration of madame, could beat the old serpent himself with tempting viands. Exquisite dainties mingles with substantials, like “apples of gold in pictures of silver,” in rich profusion; fricassees and solid English roasts, in happy union jointed; all suggestive of Full-Frog Americanized, and their union cemented by the pure extract of old Mocha, their peerless “café noir,” and signal for ladies and boys to leave. And it came none too soon, for the food claret and champagne had evidently found a lodgment, and was getting in its work. Some would talk while others were singing, and then they would all talk together. Genteel hilarity they called it in French, nothing more; bon vivante they were who enjoyed the food things of this world without abusing them; and indeed; among all that circle of planters we never heard of a drunkard or a gambler. But there was another class who did abuse them dreadfully, and themselves too. Ah, Battise! Ah, Filjere! – burnt out, no doubt, long ago – when did you ever draw a sober breath till “the last drop of the ocean” of taffy was gone forever beyond your reach? The party left about sunset for home, with the agreement to meet the following Sunday at Charles Pecot’s. As we recall them now in the order of their plantations, Col. Charles Olivier (a natural born nobleman), two Delahoussayes, Mr. Mallus, Nicolas Loisel, Theodore Faye, Dr. Solonge Sorrel, Frederic Pellerin and Charles Pecot. All there lived to a good old age, none less than seventy, except Dr. Solonge, who met an untimely death at the hands of negroes of an adjoining plantation, for which five of them dropped from the gallows at one time in Franklin. Financially they were all successful men, and left valuable estates. Their words were as good as their bonds, and their bonds as good as the bank. No stain ever rested on the fair name of any of them. Contemporary with these in age and position, among American planters, were Thomas H. Thompson, Col. J.G. Richardson, Robert Graham,



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

Martin Campbell, J.D. Wilkins, Henry Peebles and J.W. Jeannerette. All of these, too, have passed away, and death took them in rapid succession. A glance at the map will show the location of these reminiscences to be about the center of the Teche navigation, from its mouth to Breaux Bridge, and near the present town of Jeanerette, about twenty years before it was founded. Fed on lumber and emancipation money, its growth has been equal to that of the magic railroad towns of the West, and it is already aping the city airs of New Iberia. As it has made its first three-quarter mile stretch on Main street in the double quick time, a record of its author may be interesting to its busy throng who “knew not Joseph.” This was John W. Jeannerette, as he wrote it, and “Mr. Jinret” as he pronounced it, who came to the Teche country, in 1830, from the high hills of Santee, South Carolina, and bought what is now known as Pine Grove place, eight miles below New Iberia. Here he lived through good and evil report for seven years, and was generally considered the most important man in the neighborhood, especially at home. He was certainly a man of affairs, a great many of them – sugar-planter, justice of the peace, our first postmaster, pioneer “brag” player, and “mine host of the inn;” moreover, his friends claimed for him the character of the old, high-minded South Carolina gentleman. His wife was a good, pious Methodist, and tried very hard to keep their only son, Tom, straight, but it was no use. She did her level best to balance accounts in the family, always had a preaching place in the house, and there were often religious services going on in one part and a big game of cards in the other. Indeed, of all his many irons, this seemed to be the only one he really did keep hot. But his many “brag” pupils became experts, and so turned his lessons against himself that in 1837 he was sold out, and the family removed to Alabama, where it became extinct. The post-office was then continued in the same house, rented successively by postmasters, Dr. Crawford, Charley Nettleton, and Rev. Isaac Applewhite, when the old home of mixed memories was torn down and the post-office was removed two miles south, to a small store kept by a Frenchman, opposite Bayside dwelling, with F.D. Richardson as postmaster. This was near the famous tall, black, live-oak stump, which stood there, “gloomy and peculiar,” up to 1800, and gave its name, chicot noir, to all that arrondissement. Venerable relic of past centuries!”

“A glorious tree is the old, grey oak, He has stood for a thousand years, Has stood and frowned on the wood around, Like a king among his peers.” An effort was made by petition to change the name of the office to “Chicot Noir,” but Postmaster-General Cave Johnson decided against us, on account of which the then postmaster resigned, and Paul Provost succeed him. He removed the office to his store, one mile still further, making three miles from its starting point. Then the effort was made to change the name to Provostville, but the old name had come to stay, and, like the “shirt of Nessus,” will stick through all coming time. Public sentiment, however, was against the latter change, preferring the more euphonious name Jeanerette. Paul Provost was a very clever Frenchman, who began with a very small adobe house and a very large pipe, and often assisted with the priest at Patout’s Church in singing. His place grew



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

steadily until it was a store, a saloon, and a tavern. He was esteemed a fair, honest man, of pleasant social qualities. Here Jeanerette was born, and here it will continue to grow, if the fire engine is kept in good order, until it takes in its old site of “Chicot Noir,” and may in time get back to its original starting place, “Pine Grove.” In politics the old Creoles of the Teche were generally solid old-line Henry Clay Whigs, and could prove it all by the Courier des Estats Unis, and the New Orleans Bee. They were inclined to be ultra, and it was not until after the election of Alexander Mouton as Governor, in 1843, that they realized fully that there could be such a thing as respectability in Louisiana Democracy; all Acadian though he was, as Governor he left behind him no superior. There seems to have been little or no change in the status of the Attakapas Indians since 1830. They had then pretty much lost their identity as a tribe, though they still had a nominal chief and owned their little reservation at the Indian Bend, where about the same number of wigwams or huts stood then as now. No pure bloods remain, and the half-breeds show no improvement in the stock, indeed they seem to inherit all the lazy vices of the one, with none of the “get up and go along” virtues of the other race, especially among the men. As the world is now moving on the Teche, it will not be long before some Chicago capitalist will come down and take the female remnants of the tribe in as partners – as their entailed property can not be sold – and establish a first-class sugar plantation on the old reservation. The salubrity of the Teche country seems to have undergone no change; it was then considered unequaled in its latitude, and as it was fifty years ago, so it is now, and so we suppose it will be, for why not? The same health-giving breeze that fans the green ocean and bathes in its billows thousands of miles away, still whistles through the grand old live-oaks which stood in vernal beauty around the cradles of St. Martins and St. Maur, patron saints, holy shrines of the faithful. Here in the vast solitudes of nature were a few adobe homes of the Acadian exiles, victims of the most cruel and outrageous fortune. “O, bloodiest picture in the book of time!: So good and true, and yet how hard a fate! But in after years St. Maur became the dwelling-place of another race, who knew nothing save Castille and Aragon, and whose commandant was ruling with semi-regal power, when the name of the poor saint was lost to the world, and Nova Iberia lived in its stead. And here for half a century it stood in almost loneliness, the monument house of the pettit souvrano, till all was changed, and vox populi was born. Then commerce came, sweeping the prairies far and near; it came on splendid steamers and by railroads, with palace cars and seems to have founded a city here.



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

GENEALOGY OF COL. RICHARDSON (1812-1901) Builder of Bayside Plantation Compiled June 2017 by R. Paul Fitch III, Old Attakapas District Historian Col. Francis Dubose Richardson

Born August 20, 1812, Wilkinson County, Mississippi Died June 15, 1901, Haifleigh House, Franklin, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana

Father: Lt. Col. John Gaulden Richardson,

Born 1785, Wilkinson County, , Sumpter District, High Hills of Santee, South Carolina Died 1856, Bayside Plantation, Jeanerette, Iberia Parish, Louisiana

Mother: Margaret DuBose,

Born 1788, Camden, Kershaw County, South Carolina Died 1827, Wilkinson County, Mississippi

Siblings: 1. Martha Louisa Richardson (1810 - 1905), m. Dr. John Wright Gibson 2. Mary Elizabeth Richardson, his twin (1812 - 1890), m. Ira Bowman 3. Margaret Susanna Richardson (1817 - 1817), aged 7 months 4. John Wesley Richardson (1814 - 1891), m. Mary Hyland Howard; Katherine Lucy

Smith 5. Edward Moore Richardson (1818- 1855), m. Cilenie Rosalie Loisel 6. Daniel DuBose Richardson (1820 - 1855), m. Mary Rebecca Alexander 7. Margaret Susanna II Richardson (1827 - 1853), m. Robert Bowman

First Spouse: Bethia Frances Liddell Married May 7, 1839, born 1819, Wilkinson County, Mississippi, died 1852, Bayside Plantation, Jeanerette, Iberia Parish, Louisiana; daughter of Moses Liddell & Bethia Frances Richardson Children:

1. Moses Liddell Richardson (1841 - 1841), aged 10 days 2. Frank Liddell Richardson (1843 - 1920), m. Martha Josephine Moore 3. Mary Emma Richardson (1845 - 1847), aged 2 years 4. Bethia Celestine Richardson (1846 - 1917), m. Senator Donelson Caffery 5. Edward Liddell Richardson (1849 - 1850), aged 1 year 6. Margaret Emily Richardson (1851 - 1853), aged 2 ½ years



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

Second Spouse: Elizabeth Dunbar Holmes Married March 15, 1854, , born 1834, Adams County, Mississippi, died 1889, Springfield, Greene County, Missouri; daughter of Simpson Holmes and Catherine Sessions Children:

1. Eveline Holmes Richardson (1855 - 1938), m. Daniel Russell Bissell 2. Daniel DuBose Richardson (1856 – 1911), m. Nannie Jennings 3. Kate Sessions Richardson (1860 – 1884), m. Frederick Walter Davies 4. Eloise Dunbar Richardson (1862 - 1941), m. Cumberland Alexander McBride 5. Helen Lee Richardson (1864 – 1917), died as a missionary in China 6. Annie Craig Richardson (1866 - 1915), m. George Nonemacher 7. Mary Louise Richardson (1869 – 1899), died as a missionary in China 8. John Gaulden Richardson (1872 – 1874), aged 2 years

Niece: Mary Louise Richardson (1845-1875), m. Dudley Avery (of Avery Island)

(Lived at Bayside Plantation before marriage)

Sources:

• Genealogical Record, Frank L. Richardson, privately published, New Orleans, 1885 • www.findagrave.com • Shane K. Bernard, PhD., Author & McIlhenny Company Historian

http://www.findagrave.com/



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

BAYSIDE OWNERSHIP CHRONOLOGY Through several owners over its two-century lifespan, Bayside maintains its character defining architectural caliber. Below is a brief timeline of said ownership. Built by Francis Dubose Richardson (F.D. Richardson), the house has only one other long-term owner since Richardson’s tenure. 1812 Francis Dubose Richardson is born | Woodville, Wilkinson County, Mississippi 1850 Francis Dubose Richardson builds Bayside Plantation 1871 Richardson sells Bayside to Colonel John Winthrop for $70,000 1874 Mrs. Bell of the state of Georgia for $80,000 1877 Mr. H. C. Walker ? ? Dr. Dalton 1935-1936 Robert Lee Roane Sr. and Marie Farrell Roane purchase Bayside 1962 Robert Lee Roane Jr.



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

CONTEXT MAPPING

9805 Old Jeanerette Road, Jeanerette, Iberia Parish, Louisiana 70544

Jeanerette is a small city in Iberia Parish, Louisiana, United States. Known as "Sugar City", it had a population of 5,530 at the 2010 census. Jeanerette is the part of the Lafayette, Louisiana Metropolitan Statistical Area. The parish is also one of the 22 included in the Acadiana region, which has had a high proportion of Francophones.3 The town is located about 20 minutes away from New Iberia, which is the Iberia Parish seat, 30 minutes from Avery Island, and 40 minutes away from Lafayette, which is the fourth-largest city in Louisiana.

New Iberia hosts the annual Louisiana Sugar Cane Festival in September, and has its own Mardi Gras parades. It has a botanical garden and bird sanctuary and beautiful historic Victorian and antebellum homes. Author James Lee Burke and artist George Rodrigue (known for his Blue Dog paintings) are native to the world.

Avery Island is home to Tabasco sauce and salt domes. Still owned by the McIlhenny family to this today, Tabasco sauce is a popular condiment throughout Iberia Parish. Bayside Plantation is near Albania Plantation, now owned by renowned artist Hunt Sloanem.

3 Courtesy of Wikimedia on Jeanerette, Louisiana.

Courtesy of Google Maps, 2017.

Courtesy of Wikimedia.



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

BAYSIDE ENVIORNS DOWN THE BAYOU TECHE Written by Rien Fertel | Photography by Denny Culbert Two friends take on Louisiana’s Teche Scenic Byway All South Louisiana road trips should begin with boudin. There’s something about taking a steering-wheel grip to a long, curved link of the Cajun delicacy; the promise of hot pork, rice, and spice pulsating in your hands; the snapping of the sausage in two, forcing the link’s thin casing to audibly crack like the starting pistol at a race.

And so it went with this day’s planned journey: a half-dozen starter links (and a brown paper bag full of cracklins) from Bourque’s Super Store in Port Barre, a nondescript speed trap of a town on the northeast frontier of Acadiana, the state’s Cajun epicenter. Directly behind Bourque’s flows the reason and route for this road trip. The Bayou Teche proceeds from Port Barre, where it branches from the Bayou Courtableau, in a south by southeasterly direction to Patterson, 125 meandering miles downstream. The Teche (pronounced ‘tesh’) is the aorta of the Cajun heartland, a navigable bayou with a culture and history as rich as its muddy tint.

My friend and frequent travel companion Denny Culbert at the wheel, we set off on a frigid December morning down the Bayou Teche Scenic Byway, a series of two-lane highways that follow the waterway’s every curve and contour. Though both of us have lived, at different points in our lives, in close proximity to the Teche, neither of us had taken this drive. We would discover by tour’s end that the bayou provides much more than a string of Cajun-centric

Bayou Teche in Port Barre



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

highlights; it offers a scaled-down version of South Louisiana in total. Crossing shores at the town of Leonville, we followed Highway 31 south, steering our way around the bayou’s famed oxbows. In his recent Teche: A History of Louisiana’s Most Famous Bayou, an indispensable guide to understanding and navigating this route, Shane K. Bernard writes that the most common etymological explanation is that the name Teche derives from a local American aboriginal, or Chitimachan, word for snake. Following the bayou’s sinuous course, we passed horizon-stretching pastures of freshly baled hay, which, from afar, looked like slices of rolled cake fit for a giant. A man stooped to fill a bag with the fallen fruit of a scraggle of autumn-wasted pecan trees that lined the banks of the Teche. Tin-roofed homes and barns turned to rust. Here, the bayou looked narrow enough that you could throw a link of boudin to a friend on the opposite bank.

The remainder of the links, we decided, would make a warm gift to the good people at Bayou Teche Brewing, where brewmaster Karlos Knott greeted us with tasters of his latest brews, a rye-bitten dobbel and a tropical fruit-tinged ale. When paired, they provided the perfect yin and yang for holiday mood-setting. A leader in Louisiana’s craft beer boom, he opened his brewery along the bayou’s east bank with his two brothers seven years ago. It was a different scene then, Knott said, when dead animals, rusted automobiles, and other refuse filled the bayou. “Everybody grew trees [along its banks] so you couldn’t see the Teche.”

The bayou had been a dumping ground for nearly a century, beginning soon after the lumber mills ran out of lumber and the steamboats that once ferried timber and pleasure seekers up and down the waterway were gradually replaced by the railroad and, later, the highway. “The Teche is the Past in Louisiana,” Harnett T. Kane, an early bard of the state, proclaimed back in 1943. “It has seen and heard excitements. [But] has settled down to a period of serene rest.” And trash wasn’t the only problem: invasive Fried Shrimp Poboy



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

species, most notably the water hyacinth, clogged the bayou (one local congressman suggested filling the Teche with hyacinth-hungry hippopotamuses to curb the problem). But over the past decade a trio of nonprofits—the TECHE Project, Cajuns for Bayou Teche, and the Tour du Teche—have endeavored to create a healthier, sustainable, and navigable watercourse, inspiring the Knotts, among others, to embrace the bayou. There’s a new taproom, dancehall, and floating dock with room for a half-dozen Bayou Teche paddlers to tie up ship. While inside the ever-expanding warehouse of a brewery, the tanks are named after each of the towns that dot the Teche. It looked like they were running out of names, which I took as a sign that business was good.

CRAWFISH CENTRAL

Just across a nearby bridge, wedged into the gap where Bayou Fusilier pours into the Teche, sits Arnaudville. An otherwise undistinguished town of just over 1,000 residents, Arnaudville has recently reinvented itself as a culture and arts hub: a “Cajun Marfa,” in the words of Denny. New restaurants, like the Little Big Cup and the Silver Slipper Cajun Hibachi Grill, fuse, twist, and brunchify Cajun classics into knots. And there are enough private, short-term rentals to house every artist, writer, and big-city escapee roaming this side of the Mississippi.

I was skeptical about the town’s aspirations until we pulled into the Nunu Collective, a full-time atelier and part-time supper club, yoga studio, music venue, bookstore, conscious-living exposition host, and French language and cultural immersion program. Each project is the waking dream of native son George Marks, who started Nunu a decade ago as a community gathering spot governed by three rules: no gossip, no politics, and no religion. I can’t say much about the last two subjects, but the quintet of women who sat around a quilt, stitching decorative loops into the blanket’s blue underlay, were most definitely sharing a bit of local chatter. They insisted we help ourselves to hot coffee and homemade shortbread while we perused the gallery’s collection of paintings and woodwork. I’d learn to take up needle and thread for the promise of more coffee, cookies, and gossipy company here.

We continued down the Teche’s west bank where crawfish ponds dot the landscape, an indication that we were nearing Breaux Bridge, the self-proclaimed “Crawfish Capital of the World,” as well as a popular destination for antique shoppers. On the northern outskirts, we

Bon Creole in New Iberia



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

pulled up to Glenda’s Creole Kitchen and its steam table buffet of lunch specials: catfish courtbouillon, smothered pork steak, crawfish étouffée. But I couldn’t keep my eyes off the smothered okra: gorgeously glutinous, bursting with crabmeat and shrimp, and served over a mound of Louisiana long-grain rice. For extra measure, we ordered a stuffed turkey wing—prodigious and peppery—thrown atop. It was the ultimate exercise in the region’s prowess for culinary excess.

We found the eternal flame dedicated to the exiled Acadians, extinguished. It was a vivid and heartbreaking reminder of the fragility of living contiguously to the Gulf coast.

Down we drove, stopping in the historic town of St. Martinville, where the bayou rolls at twice its original width and sugarcane is king. Home to the Acadiana’s oldest Catholic church—an imposing, gold-colored structure that nearly abuts the bayou— St. Martinville was once known as “Petit Paris” in the 1800s, back when there was an opera house and thriving hotel trade. Today, this small city (population 6,000) is home to the Evangeline Oak, the mythic meeting spot of Evangeline and Gabriel, star-crossed Acadian lovers separated during the French-Catholic exile from modern-day Nova Scotia by the British in 1755. Though the story is pure hogwash—invented by the romantic poet Longfellow, who never stepped foot in Louisiana—the majestic oak has long stood as an icon for the Cajun community, and was once popular enough to bill itself as the “Most Photographed Tree in the World.”

Adjacent to the old oak sits a pair of institutions dedicated to exploring the lives of the peoples who made the Teche so culturally vibrant: the Museum of the Acadian Memorial and the African American Museum. Both were closed for repair, victims of the historic flooding that struck the state this past August, when twenty-plus inches of rainfall caused area waterways, including the Bayou Teche, to overspill their banks. Behind the Acadian Museum, within steps of the bayou, we found the eternal flame dedicated to the exiled Acadians, extinguished. It was a vivid and heartbreaking reminder of the fragility of living contiguously to the Gulf coast. But carved into the flame’s granite pedestal, an inscription provided a glimmer of hope: “Un peuple sans passé est un peuple sans futur”—a people without a past are a people without a future.

Thankfully, the Bayou Teche Museum in New Iberia, nicknamed the “Queen City of the Teche,” was spared from flooding. The museum ably traces the region’s history from the pre-contact Chitimachas to Cajuns, Creoles, and beyond. A special exhibit featured the exotica-tinged paintings of bayous, birds, and bunnies by Hunt Slonem, who lives part-time in a plantation just down the bayou (in 2017 the museum will honor the life and career of local icon

Stuffed turkey wing and smothered shrimp and okra with sides at Glenda's Creole Kitchen



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

George Rodrigue, of Blue Dog fame). A pair of outstanding permanent exhibitions highlighted the trinity of industries that have kept the Bayou Teche afloat: seafood, salt, and sugar. The bayou’s midway point, New Iberia, is also a wonderful place for a second lunch. The thirty-five-year-old lunch spot Bon Creole offered up a seafood bounty, which we sprawled along the mirror-lined lunch counter: a dark-rouxed gumbo brimming with Gulf delights, and an overstuffed fried shrimp po’ boy.

BIG SUGAR

Buried beneath a series of domes—including the most famous, Avery Island, which gave the world Tabasco brand pepper sauce—the local salt trade is more difficult to experience than the fruit of Louisiana’s waters. But there is no escaping the gravitational orbit of big sugar, especially in the autumnal and winter months when the cane fields that line the Teche from top to bottom—in addition to corners of Acadiana further afield—are burned before harvesting, LeJeune's Bakery

Rows of sugar cane



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

ridding the stalks of their sugarless leafy material and leaving local highways under a dense haze of mildly acidic, grassy-scented smoke. It’s a yearly signal that sugar ain’t always so sweet.

Trailers haul the harvested stalks, twenty tons per load, to one of eleven area sugar mills that process stalk-squeezed saccharine juice into raw sugar and molasses. On the border of Franklin, the Teche’s third great historic town, we ran smack into the Sterling Sugars factory. Built in 1890 and capable of churning out 1.2 million tons of sugar annually, this behemoth of a mill, spitting tremendous plumes from a chain of towering smokestacks, looked like an armored dragon risen from the murky depths to alight on the bayou’s right bank. Sterling and the other mills we stumbled upon that day were simultaneously frightening and fascinating. In an era when the only factories we frequent are converted condominiums and shopping malls, it was compelling to watch American industry darken a clear blue sky.

With the sun drooping fast, we rounded the contours of the Lower Teche, stopping only in Jeanerette, aka “Sugar City,” for a ginger cake from the 132-year-old LeJeune’s Bakery. (I returned the next day for a cappuccino from Cooper Street Coffee, the only place along the Bayou Byway to score a proper cup of coffee.) Except for a short detour to bypass the Cypress Bayou Casino complex, our path steadily traced a trail that kept the bayou, or its tree line, within sight.

It was dark by the time we reached the Teche’s terminus, where it merges with the Lower Atchafalaya River near Patterson. Near the bayou’s mouth, we found Boiling Madd, a simple seafood joint where we expected to dine on the first of the season’s crawfish catch. But the cold snap had driven the crustaceans back into the mud, and we had to settle for crabs. They arrived six to a platter, huge-to-bursting with sweet meat and spice. I was happy to have settled.

As I sucked the meat from the shells, I considered the alternative path from that breakfast boudin to these boiled crabs. A drive down four-lane Highway 90, rather than the serpentine route we took, would have brought us here in ninety minutes. But then I wouldn’t have spotted the charmingly-named Cornerstone Cowboy Church in New Iberia. I wouldn’t have caught the iconic, century-old lampposts that line Franklin’s Main Street pop awake as dusk settled over the town. I would have missed the way sunlight turns sugarcane into golden-tipped spears, and the hundreds of spider-armed oak trees swaying with a thousand ZZ Top beards made from Spanish moss, and the mystery of what lies beyond the next bend in the bayou

Crabs at Boiling Madd in Patterson



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES (1987) “Statement of Significance: Bayside is locally significant in the area of architecture as one of Iberia Parish's finest Greek Revival structures. The statewide comprehensive historic structures survey has identified 876 50+ year old buildings in the parish. Although the area that became Iberia Parish was fairly well settled by the late 1700's, the vast majority of the historic building stock dates from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Typically, these consist of bungalows, "vernacular" commercial buildings, Queen Anne Revival houses, and plain cottages. The handful of Creole and Greek Revival structures represent the architectural cream of the parish. The survey identified some twenty-three Greek Revival houses, most of which are galleried cottages. Bayside is conspicuous among this group because it is one of only four two story examples. Of these, it is one of only two which feature colossal columns. (The other is Shadows-on-the-Teche, a National Historic Landmark.) Other noteworthy features include the shoulder molded openings, the two wooden mantels, the floor plan, the doors, and the interior staircase. Major Bibliographical References Historic Structures Survey, Iberia Parish, State Historic Preservation Office. Historical data submitted by owner. Copies in file. Old photographs are in possession of owner Physical Appearance of Bayside: Bayside (1850) is a two-story brick Greek Revival plantation house located in a park-like setting on Bayou Teche near the town of Jeanerette. Despite some alteration, the house retains its National Register eligibility. When viewed from the front, Bayside seems like a straightforward Greek Revival plantation house, but it actually has a complex architectural history which is not entirely possible to discern. Old pictures show various wings and accretions which have disappeared. In addition, there are certain features of the house which may or may not be original. The present pitched roof house has a central hall plan that is two rooms deep with a double parlor on the southeast side. The five-bay facade has a colossal Tuscan gallery supporting a somewhat meager entablature. The second story gallery has an unusual balustrade formed of linked "U" shaped members. Another unusual feature of the house is its central front and rear doorways. In most Greek Revival houses the side lights are incorporated with the transom and door casing into a single unit, but at Bayside the side lights are separately articulated as individual windows. The interior features shoulder molded openings formed of beveled planks, molded ceiling medallions, and panels below the windows. The staircase in the central hall culminates in a heavy turned newel post. Evidently some of the doors have been moved around, but most appear to be original. Some are of the two-panel type, some are of the four-panel type, and some are double leaf.



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

The architectural evidence at Bayside is augmented by four old photographs of the house in the possession of the present owner. But these do not provide a clear picture of the house's architectural development. For example, one of the old photographs shows a rear galleried wing appended to the northern corner of the house. From the style, it looks as if this wing could have been an original feature, but because it no longer exists, one cannot say. In about 1890 a large semi-octagonal bay was appended to the house near the eastern corner. Evidently this contained a single room on each story. The only evidence of it today is a framed recess in the rear parlor wall showing the location of the door which gave access to the bay room. In about 1900 the aforementioned rear wing (which may have been original) was evidently replaced, rebuilt, or incorporated into a larger wing. Whatever happened, an early twentieth century photograph shows the house with a new larger wing, in the same location, with imbricated shingles and the suggestion of a turret. Like the bay, this wing was removed in the twentieth century. One of the most puzzling aspects of Bayside is its present rear gallery. The rear gallery is twice as deep as the front gallery and has its own hip roof, separate from the main roof of the house. Because of its peculiar appearance and application to the house, one is tempted to conclude that it is not original, but this does not appear to be the case. Much of the detailing on the rear gallery is similar to the front gallery. In addition, the rear elevation of the house has three upstairs doorways, all of which are original. Obviously, they must have opened onto some kind of gallery. Evidently the present rear gallery staircase was added in the late nineteenth century. Another puzzling aspect of the house is its three marble Rococo Revival mantels on the ground story. The official history of the house asserts that these mantels were installed in the early twentieth century. Although they look salvaged, mantels of this sort are not unexpected in a house of the age and size of Bayside. For the record, there are two wooden aedicule style mantels upstairs which are obviously original to the house. There is also a cast-iron Rococo Revival mantel upstairs which is undoubtedly a late nineteenth century addition. More Recent Changes: (1) In 1962 a small wing was built on the southeast side. (2) A small carport has been added on the northwest side of the house. (3) Most of the upstairs portion of the rear gallery has been enclosed. Assessment of Integrity: Despite all of the changes Bayside has undergone, it still retains its principal Greek Revival features which establish its importance as an example of the style (see Item 3). To the rear of the property is a brick milk house which could well be contemporaneous with the house. It is listed as a contributing element. Major Bibliographical References 1. Historic Structures Survey, Iberia Parish, State Historic Preservation Office. 2. Historical data submitted by owner. Copies in file. Old photographs are in possession of owner. 3. National Register Listing, accepted and listed on the National Register January 1987.”



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

BAYSIDE IN THE MEDIA

BOOK FEATURE - Creole Thrift by Angèle Parlange, October 2006

In Angèle Parlange’a work, she publishes a recipe unique to Bayside Plantation in her book about Louisiana culture - the Bayside Mint Julep! Make it yourself and enjoy it on a hot summer day relaxing on the front porch.



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

BOOK FEATURE – The Glass Rainbow by James Lee Burke, June 2011



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

MAGAZINE ARTICLE – Traditional Home, May 2016 TASTEMAKER: ARTIST HUNT SLONEM Artist Hunt Slonem loves to entertain at his historic house on the bayou. WritteN: Ted Loos, Photography: Marco Ricca & Colleen Duffley. Produced: Doris Athineos

People from all over cherish the invitation to visit Albania, artist Hunt Slonem’s circa-1850 plantation house situated deep in the Louisiana bayou. I was lucky enough to be one of them recently when 20 guests gathered for dinner—some of us for a sleepover—at the elegant Greek Revival home near the small community of Jeanerette.

Live oaks with dangling tendrils swaying in the breeze on the well-tended grounds set the scene for arriving guests. A massive floating, circular stairway in the center hall greeted us inside the 12,000-square-foot home filled with portraits and choice 19th-century antiques. We didn’t yet know the house may well be haunted—something we learned only after we had picked our guest rooms. Nonetheless, we were in for a meal and a stay we all deemed extraordinary.

The guest list equaled the home’s pedigree. One of the revelers founded his own museum—Mitchell “Micky” Wolfson, of Miami’s eclectic Wolfsonian. “This house is legendary,” said Wolfson as he walked in. Also on hand was Ashton Hawkins, former special counsel to the

Parrot-green walls, a rococo center table by Alexander Roux, and a half-tester bed by 19th-century New Orleans craftsman William McCracken grace the room



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

Metropolitan Museum of Art and a longtime confidante of New York’s top collectors, plus Slonem’s dear friend Angèle Parlange, member of a prominent old Louisiana family.

Albania, about two hours from New Orleans, is actually Slonem’s second plantation, the other being Lakeside in Pointe Coupee Parish. “That one really goes on forever,” Slonem says, which makes the mind reel. The gregarious, energetic artist, nominally based in Manhattan, has three more historic houses, including the Woolworth mansion in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

It’s safe to say he’s from the “more is more” school of thought. “People always ask, ‘Why do you have two plantations?’ ” Slonem told me, setting up a practiced line. “Because I can’t afford 10.”

In keeping with his lifestyle, his art takes profusion and abundance as its subjects. Slonem, 64, paints colorful, impressionistic canvases filled with multiple bunnies, butterflies, parrots—you name it. And his Warhol-inspired work has catapulted him into the collections of 120 of the world’s top museums. His own canvases are interspersed throughout Albania. He loves painting the slender arm of the Bayou Teche waterway that’s right behind the house.

“Hunt is just as interested in historical portraits and history as in his own work,” confided Parlange, who met Slonem after he bought Lakeside, located near her family’s Parlange plantation, where she grew up. “I’m convinced it informs his art and his originality.”

Slonem has deep family roots in the South. “This is sugar country,” he says, recounting the history and fortunes of the Grevemberg family, who built Albania. He bought it in 1996 from an elderly widow who firmly held that it was haunted..

A grouping of Slonem’s iconic bunny paintings adorns this wall, but you can get the look with “Bunny Wall,”

a Lee Jofa wallpaper from its Groundworks collection.

Slonem is passionate about color and chose Sherwin-Williams’s “Solaria.”

http://search.leejofa.com/Groundworks-Paper-White/GWP-3410.101-788/ItemInformation.aspx

http://search.leejofa.com/Groundworks-Paper-White/GWP-3410.101-788/ItemInformation.aspx



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

“It’s everything I ever wanted,” he said, gesturing toward one of its treasures—an Egyptian marble mantel in the study.

Notably, Slonem purchased some 85 pieces of Gothic Revival objects, many of them chairs, from the collection of Lee Anderson, a personal friend and one of the field’s great connoisseurs, at the auction house Doyle New York.

Albania also is home to several pieces of rich mahogany furniture attributed to Louisiana’s legendary Prudent Mallard, a 19th-century New Orleans merchant and furniture dealer. A particular standout is a tester bed with a dramatically cantilevered canopy.

Portraits are a passion for Slonem—and it makes sense, given how social he is, that faces populate his walls. The noble visage of French aristocrat and Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette looked on us in the dining room as we feasted on the delicious fare. (He seemed to approve.)

With its multicolored interiors and eccentric mix of collecting and decorating (“collectorating”), Albania is an artwork. Slonem has spent years perfecting the colors. “These aquas are like ice cubes,” he said, referring to the dining room’s turquoise hue. “They don’t warm up the space.” And in Louisiana’s sweltering summers, that helps.

Eventually, those of us who were staying retired to our guest rooms. Mine featured Kelly-green walls and an enormous canopy above my bed. The night passed without incident—or so I thought.

A few weeks later, I wrote to Parlange to ask her for thoughts on her stay at Albania. She e-mailed, “No ghost sightings by me. UNLESS that wasn’t you who blew in my room in the wee hours of the morning?”

Chalk it up to the mystery and magic of Albania Plantation.

A 19th-century copy of Bellini’s Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan graces the bedroom.

Guests gather in the mansion’s aqua-hued dining room for a convivial dinner after careful preparation of the table. Slonem says it took 10 years to find the right color for the room—a customized version of Sherwin-Williams’s “Light Calypso”



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

REALTOR & BROKER BIOGRAPHIES

Peter W. Patout, Realtor & Historic Properties Specialist Licensed in Louisiana & Mississippi, Talbot Historic Properties Peter W. Patout is a native of south Louisiana and grew up among the sugar cane fields of the Bayou Teche country. He is a historic property specialist, and is a proud long term resident and property owner in the French Quarter of New Orleans, in addition to owning a historic family home in Patoutville, Louisiana. A consummate ambassador for Louisiana, Peter’s family have been land and plantation owners for twelve generations in Louisiana and Mississippi. Peter studied architecture for two years and received a business degree from University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He also studied Louisiana Architectural History at Tulane University in New Orleans. The founder and owner of Peter Patout Antiques & Appraisals in New Orleans since 1984, his areas of expertise are Louisiana furniture, fine art, and decorative arts. For about 20 years, Peter has attended the Natchez Antiques Forum and the Historic New Orleans Collection’s Forum. Blending his passions for art and architecture, Peter is a founding member and active on the board of the Louisiana Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. As a real estate agent with Talbot Historic Properties, he provides his clients with his expertise and enhances their experience in finding the most beautiful and significant historic homes available.

Historic Governor Jacques Dupré Plantation House, Jarreau, Pointe Coupée Parish, Louisiana. c. 1790 Creole Plantation.

Dunleith Historic Inn, Natchez, Mississippi. c. 1856 Greek Revival Plantation.



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

Tracy Talbot, Broker Realtor Talbot Historic Properties, Licensed in Louisiana & Mississippi

Tracy Talbot is from the Bayou Lafourche area not far from Madewood Plantation. Her parents owned the land where Woodlawn Plantation home once stood. While attending Louisiana State University she obtained her Louisiana Real Estate License. Once completing her business degree at LSU Tracy moved west to Colorado. There she worked for a commercial real estate company and opened its residential division. She held a Colorado license at this time. Tracy relocated to San Francisco and got involved in the art business. When returning home to Louisiana she was able to combine art and architecture in her real estate business. "Architecture is art", she always says. She started Talbot Historic Properties in 2001 in the French Quarter, but has extended her market as far as Albania Plantation in St. Mary Parish and Lakeside Plantation in Point Coupee Parish. Tracy's passion is to combine smart business with historic preservation.

Albania Plantation House in Jeanerette, Louisiana. Constructed c. 1840 for Charles Alexandre Grevemberg

Lakeside Plantation in Batchelor, Pointe Coupée Parish, Louisiana. Constructed in the 1860s for Charles Stewart



Summer 2018

www.PeterPatout.com


office: (504) 415-9730

BIBLIOGRAPHY "Bayside (Jeanerette, Louisiana)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 17 Mar. 2017. Web. 17 Mar. 2017. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayside_(Jeanerette,_Louisiana)>. Bernard, Shane K. Teche: A History of Louisiana's Most Famous Bayou. Jackson: U Press of Mississippi, 2016. Print. Docq. "Panoramio - Photos by docq." Panoramio - Photos by docq. Google Photos, 13 June 2008. Web. 17 Mar. 2017. <https://www.panoramio.com/user/278278>. Gibson, Tom Lee. Memoirs of Francis D. Richardson, written December 1, 1895 N.p., Print. Hudgens, Richard, architect and architectural historian. Email correspondence. June 2017. Kestenbaum, Lawrence. "Farmer Politicians in Louisiana." The Political Graveyard. N.p., 20 Dec. 2015. Web. 17 Mar. 2017. <http://politicalgraveyard.com/geo/LA/farmer.html>. Loos, Ted. "Tastemaker: Artist Hunt Slonem." Traditional Home. N.p., May 2016. Web. 15 June 2017. <http://www.traditionalhome.com/lifestyle/tastemaker-artist-hunt-slonem>. Wikimedia. "Jeanerette, Louisiana." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Mar. 2017. Web. 17 Mar. 2017. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanerette,_Louisiana#cite_note-3>. PHOTO CREDITS Portrait of F.D. Richardson R. Paul Fitch, III. Old Attakapas District Historian. Historic Images of Bayside Robert Lee Roane, Jr. Family Papers Black and White Images Louisiana Digital Library Online Database Contemporary Images of Bayside Paul Costello Paul Costello Photography PREPARED BY: Marguerite Roberts, MPS, Tulane University ‘16 Kelly L. Calhoun, MPS, LREC, Tulane University ’16 Leah B. Solomon, MPS, Tulane University ‘16 The information in this booklet, while not guaranteed, is submitted by sources believed to be reliable. December 10, 2018.

Documents

Sugar Plantation on Bayou Teche BAYSIDE PLANTATION · Bayside Plantation, Jeanerette, LA – Property Information Packet – Page 1 Peter W. Patout, Listing Agent Historic House Specialist