I've written a novel based on the LeBeau House in Arabi, Louisiana, and I'm giving away free PDF promotional copies. It's called The Secret Of LeCeau House. If you'd like one, please email me at order2q@gmail.com
I wasn't able to put this in the Youtbue description, because it was too long. So, here is the summary on the history of each plantation in the video.
LeBeau House: This house was built between 1850 and 1855. It has had many owners since. It still stands in Arabi, Louisiana but is in deterioration. The man who had it built, LeBeau, died shortly after it was completed. Of all of them, It's my favorite. I've visited this house many times and have even been in it once. It's been privately owned since its beginning. One interesting thing about it is that it was used as a gambling house and a speak easy in the 20s. They built gun turrets into the house by the door, but I don't think they were ever used in the manner that they were intended for.
Another interesting thing about the house is the city of New Orleans (this wasn't Arabi at the time) wanted to tax LeBeau for how many staircases were in it. He had planned to put two in it and had one already finished. After finding out about the tax for the staircases he decided to move them outside so as not to be taxed on them.
A couple of interesting things about LeBeau is that he was a doctor and made most of his fortune by investing and became wealthy as a result. He once had two slaves that ran away on a steam boat. He was relentless in hunting them down, and once he had found them, he sued the owner of the boat and won it in the settlement.
Unfortunately, Lebeau House was intentionally set on fire and burned down on November 22, 2013.
Seven Oaks: This plantation home was built around 1840. It served as head quarters for both Confederate and Union troops during the Civil War. It was used as barracks during WW I but became a private residence again until 1957 when it was abandoned. It sat in ruins until it was torn down in 1977. I've always looked for the site of this house when on that side of the river, but just recently found out that it is at the east end of Seven Oaks Blvd and not on Nine Mile Point Road as I was led to believe.
Belle Chasse: This home was built by Judah P. Benjamin, once a Louisiana senator and later the Secretary of State for The Confederacy. He bought the land in 1844 and had the massive house built. It was raided by the Union troops during the Civil War, and everything was taken out of it.
Like other plantation homes the Mississippi River moved close to the house causing officials to move it. But, by 1960 the house was in ruins beyond repair. It was torn down. One thing survives from the house, and that is the bell. A monument to the house was made near the site with the bell as its main feature. There is a waste water plant where the plantation used to be and a city built up all around it.
An interesting thing about Judah P. Benjamin's home in New Orleans is that it is now a strip club, unfortunately.
Orange Grove: One of the other plantation homes that most fascinated me when I first came across it in the book Ghosts Along The Mississippi. It was built around 1847 in Braithewaite, Louisiana not far from LeBeau House in Arabi. One thing that really impressed me about this house is it had a 40 foot long hall way with 20 foot high ceilings and marble tiles. I would really have appreciated seeing this house in its ruined state, but I think it would have been much more interesting if they would have preserved it and restored it. Those marble floors and that grand hall would have been impressive to witness first hand.
The last owner of the house abandoned it in 1884 after not being able to hire anyone to work the fields therefore the money dried up, and the house was left to fall into ruin.
Another interesting thing about the house is that a train company called Southern Railway bought the house in 1952, and to keep vandals out they hired a man to live in it, but he didn't care for the house as it should have been cared for. They found he was raising many chickens in the great hall and littered the place with trash.
In 1982 the house mysteriously caught fire, and they tore down the remains. I searched for the site a few times, but I wasn't able to find it. I recently tried Google Maps, but I still couldn't find it as I have many of the sites of these plantation homes. This house was located in Braithewaite, and much devastation was brought on by both Hurricanes Katrina and Isaac there. If a monument was set up for this house, I imagine it's not there anymore.
One more interesting thing about this house is that it wasn't like other plantation homes in Louisiana. Most were Greek Revival, Colonial or West Indies, but this one was more of the English Tudor style which was a rare thing in this state being that it was mostly French and Spanish who lived here during the antebellum period when the homes were being built. One reason might be because the people who built it originally came from Wales and lived in Pennsylvania when they first came here.
Three Oaks: This plantation home was very close to LeBeau in Arabi. It was built by Sylvan Peyroux. I don’t know what year it was built. The interesting thing about this house was it was bought by the Domino sugar plant, and they secretly tore it down in 1966, because the Louisiana Landmark Society wanted to preserve, and the sugar plant didn’t want to. So, what better way to solve this problem for the sugar company than to tear it down in the middle of the night?
From the pictures I've seen of it, it would have been easily restored since it was still in good shape.
Chatsworth: This plantation was built in 1859 in Baton Rouge (the capital of Louisiana) just a few years before the Civil War. There's not much to say about this house except that in the 1920s it was used for wild parties by college guys. It was torn down in 1930, because the Mississippi river got too close to it. It really was an incredible looking house, though.
Belle Grove: This house was built in the 1840s, was abandoned in 1925 and mysteriously burned down in 1952. It was located near White Castle, Louisiana. This is the house that really got me interested in plantation homes, especially ones that have been in a state of deterioration, after I saw it in the book Ghosts Along The Mississippi.
If it would have survived it would have been the largest plantation home in the South. In this picture you can't see the other side of the house or back obviously, but there were additional wings to the house on these sides that had fallen off because of deterioration.
An interesting thing about the house is there were many massive Live Oak trees in front of the house, but as with other plantations, the Mississippi River moved closer and closer to it taking down many of the trees.
The style of this house is Greek Revival with Corinthian capitals. Most of the plantations used the Doric capitals, and some use the Ionic.
One more interesting thing, and probably one of the most fascinating things about it, was the second owner made the house more grand than the first, and this was after the Civil War. The second owner's son inherited the house and all of his father's wealth which was immense at the time. A series of misfortunes led to the loss of this great wealth, and the house had to be sold. The son of the second owner moved into a small apartment on Bienville Street and lived out the rest of his life there. In an interview, in 1945, he said he was never bitter about losing it all and coming from having everything to having nothing. I find that to be incredible!
Fort Proctor: I wanted to include Fort Proctor in with the plantations since it is a part of that era and because I thought it was interesting. This fort was built out in a very lonely spot on Lake Borgne to use as a defense during the Civil War but was never finished and never saw any battles. It can be seen from Shell Beach but can only be reached by boat. The lake has completely surrounded it, and all roads have been cut off by the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet since its completion in 1965. Incidentally, the MRGO was blamed for flooding Chalmette and parts of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
Woodlawn: This house was built in 1840 and was torn down in the 1940s due to abandonment and deterioration. It was located in Napoleonville, Louisiana. This is one of the houses that used the Ionic capitals, and they were one of the only ones made of real marble. In the book Ghosts Along The Mississippi the photographer went back five years later after he had taken the first pictures, in the 1930s, to see how the house was doing, and it had been torn down. All that was left were the capitals laying across the lawn with weeds growing up around them. He took pictures of the somber setting as they lay there, a reminder of the former glory of a long gone era. I would have loved to have seen this house in person!
There is another plantation home that was built by the same family called Madewood that is still in existence and is a tourist attraction. It looks just like Woodlawn, but it has a different entablature.
Staircase in Chatsworth.
Oak Alley: This is the only house I've included here that has been restored. But, like the others it had a period of abandonment and deterioration after the Civil War and was included in the book Ghosts Along The Mississippi. This house was built in 1839 on the site of a much smaller plantation home. The man who owned the original home on the property planted, in the 1700s, the Live Oaks that line the path going to the river. This is somewhat reminiscent of the line of oaks planted by De la Ronde in Chalmette, Louisiana. His plantation home was burned down by the British during the last battle of the War of 1812. The oaks still stand today, but there is a massive chemical plant behind them that mars the beauty of these trees.
Oak Alley sat in ruins until 1925. Now, it is a tourist attraction and has been since it was restored. It's in Vacherie, Louisiana.
An interesting thing about this house is that the land was owned by Valcour Aimee, the richest man in Louisiana before the Civil War. He traded this land, with his wife's brother, for another piece of land, and then the house that is there now was built.
Valcour Aimee owned and lived in another plantation home just a short distance from that area, and his plantation was called Le Petite Versailles. In between Oak Alley and Le Petite Versailles is St. Joseph plantation and Felicity plantation. Felicity was was used as the exterior for the house in the movie The Skeleton Key.
Incidentally, Le Petite Versailles is no longer in existence. There is a school right across form the land where this house once stood.
Bell Grove Spiral Staircase: Interesting thing about this staircase is that it was at the back of the house at the end of a long hall way. The photographer of the pictures and author of the book Ghosts Along The Mississippi originally took the pictures of the house in 1939. When he revisited it in 1945 he found that the staircase had crumbled to the ground.
There are many other long forgotten plantation homes in Louisiana that I would have included here, but I only had enough time in the song to put the ones that I did in the video. I chose the ones that I thought were the most interesting in feature and story.
There’s not much history on most of the others that weren’t included here, either. Some that are in this video have little known about them as well such as Chatsworth or Three Oaks, but enough to make them interesting.
Plantations are a great part of Louisiana history, and there are beautifully restored plantation homes that can be visited today such as Oak Alley and San Francisco. Most of the ones that are open to the public today were once in ruins as the ones that are featured in this video were.
It’s just that they met with a better fortune than these here.
I've been hanging around with a squirrel in my backyard. He likes to eat peanuts on my knee. Here's a video of him, if you'd like to see. :)
