field studies 05 - oak alley and laura

Field StudiesOak Alley Plantation and

Laura Plantation

Anthony DelRosario

Studio in Building Preservation

Professors G. Cizek, M. Thomas, and H. Knight

Master in Preservation Studies

Tulane School of Architecture

1 PRST 6510 - Studio in Building Preservation – G. Cizek, M. Thomas, H. Knight – March 26, 2010

On March 19, Studio in Building Preservation made our fifth field trip of the

semester to Oak Alley Plantation (Fig. 1) and Laura Plantation (Fig. 2). We were able to

compare the two most popular plantations for cultural tourism in Louisiana. Previously,

we have compared Evergreen Plantation and Whitney Plantation, two large intact

plantations of similar age but in different stages of preservation. Also, we toured two

Creole raised plantation houses, Destrehan Plantation House and Homeplace

Plantation House, that were built during the same period (and likely by the same

craftsmen) but differ in size and amount of preservation work. In addition, we were able

to compare two masonry fortifications, Fort Jefferson and Fort Pike, which differed in

time period, size, and amount of preservation work. During the weekend trip to St.

Francisville and Natchez, we visited a number of sites where we saw various fund

raising tactics, preservation methods, and interpretation approaches.

Oak Alley Plantation is one of most, if not the most, well-known plantations along

the Mississippi River. The iconic 800 feet long double row of 300 year-old oak trees

helps draw over one hundred thousand visitors per year. Also, according to the

National Register of Historic Places nomination form, Oak Alley is the finest of the few

remaining full peripteral plantation houses. The house, originally known as Bon Sejour,

was built in 1837 to 1839 by George Swainey for Jacques Télésphore Roman (NRHP).

The design is thought to have been provided by Joseph Pilie, Madame Roman’s father

who was an architect (NRHP). The Greek Revival house features twenty eight colossal

Doric columns in a peripteral colonnade (Fig. 3). Unlike the other plantation houses that

we have visited along River Road below Baton Rouge (Destrehan, Homeplace, Whitney

Anthony DelRosario – Master in Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture


and Evergreen), Oak Alley is square in plan with a central hall. In Natchez, we saw two

large houses with a central hall, Melrose and Stanton Hall.

According to the plantation’s website, “restoration of Oak Alley was one of the

first along the Great River Road and began the trend toward saving old plantation

homes in this area.” In 1925, Andrew and Josephine Stewart purchased the plantation

from Whitney Bank and hired Richard Koch to perform extensive restoration. The

interiors “represent a significantly early professional restoration, predating restoration at

Colonial Williamsburg” (NRHP). “The pale pink of the plastered columns and walls and

the blue green of the louvered shutters and gallery railing were color choices of Mrs.

Stewart at that time” (NRHP). During the Stewarts’ ownership, the property’s slave

cabins were torn down. Also, the Stewarts requested to have a third dormer added to

the roof on each side. According to the house tour, as a widow in the 1960s, Mrs.

Stewart opened the first floor of the house for tours for twenty five cents per school

class. In addition, Mrs. Stewart “created a non-profit foundation, which would be known

as the Oak Alley Foundation, in order that the home and 25 acres of ground would

remain open for all to share” (Oak Alley website).

The house was named a National Historic Landmark in 1974, two years after the

death of Mrs. Stewart. According to Professor Cizek and Professor Thomas, the

nomination form stated that the house contained a good mixture of antique furniture

(from 19th Century) and contemporary furniture (from early 20th Century). However,

currently the house does not contain many items from the period that Mrs. Stewart

resided in the house and is presented as an interpretation of the mid 19th Century. Also

according to Professor Cizek and Professor Thomas, during the early years of the



house open to tours, Mrs. Stewart’s maids were the original guides giving “an

unsophisticated interpretation.” Currently, the house tour led by hoopskirt clad women

is of the variety that Professor Cizek would call “Moonlight and Magnolias” similar to the

tours that we experienced at Longwood and Stanton Hall in Natchez.

The main house at Oak Alley Plantation is in need of serious repair. Over the

years, previous repairs have been done quickly and cheaply. Two major problems are

the columns and the exterior electrical work. Several of the columns show severe

damage that includes buckling (Fig. 6) due to the improper use of Portland cement (Fig.

4). Also, the exterior electrical duct that runs along the top of the ground floor has

exposed a large gap (Fig. 5). I would suggest to the Oak Alley Foundation that

traditional methods of repair would be more appropriate for the situation and would save

money in the long term.

Laura Plantation is located four miles down River Road from Oak Alley

Plantation. The proximity of the plantations facilitates tourists to easily visit both in one

day within a span of a few hours. In fact, classmate Bryan Block saw guests from his

Block-Keller House Bed and Breakfast at both plantations.

The main house at Laura Plantation (Figs. 7 & 8) is a French Creole raised

cottage that is of briquette-entre-poteaux construction with a brick ground floor.

According to Professor Cizek, the house was built circa 1805 possibly by Charles

Paquet, the same free man of color that built Destrehan and possibly Homeplace.

Destrehan is a French Creole raised cottage also of briquette-entre-poteaux

construction with brick ground floor; Homeplace is a French Creole raised cottage of



bousillage-entre-poteaux construction with brick ground floor. However, the National

Register of Historic Places nomination form from 1992 states that the house was

constructed circa 1820 and that “St. James Parish historians contend that Laura was

built circa 1810 and remodeled in 1821.” I would be interested in seeing the full

nomination form, not just the text of significance and contributing elements from the pdf

found at the Louisiana Division of Historic Preservation's National Register website, to

find out who filled out the nomination form and his background in order to understand

why he stated a construction date of 1820.

History of Laura Plantation as a cultural tourism site can be traced to 1989 when

Professor Cizek conducted a Tulane class that created HABS drawings for the house.

His involvement helped spur Norman Marmillion to create Laura Plantation Company, a

for-profit group that acquired the property in 1993. The next year Laura Plantation

opened to the public and became one of Louisiana’s most visited tourist attractions.

According to Professor Cizek, 62 new businesses were created nearby after the quick

success of Laura Plantation. However, on August 9, 2004, the house was engulfed by

fire. According to Norm Marmillion in an article from The Advocate, the old Creole

construction method saved the house from total destruction because “the posts and

beams were 25 percent bigger than they needed to be” and the fire did not burn through

them (Fig. 9). The video Reconstructing Creole is a wonderful documentary about the

story of Laura Plantation and the rebuilding after the fire. In the video, Norman says

that Laura is “200 years of puzzles.” These puzzles include not only the lives of the

people that lived at Laura but also the methods in which the house was constructed. As

a House of Thirty, the house was built using an early form of prefabrication where large



pieces were built in the field and interlocking pieces numbered with Roman numerals

from one to thirty to be matched on site (Fig. 10). The thirty of a House of Thirty refers

to the number of column supports that run from floor to ceiling across the house.

Laura Plantation was designated “best history tour in the U.S. by Lonely Planet

Travel (Matrana, 256). This was due to the dedication that Norman Marmillion put into

the research of the plantation. According the article in The Advocate, while on a

University of New Orleans committee studying New Orleans tourism, Norman

interviewed people visiting plantations and found "at least 80 percent of the people

visiting these houses were looking for how the people lived” and “didn't want to see

antiques” but “wanted to know history." While researching the history of the people that

lived at Laura, the memoirs of Laura Locoul Gore were discovered in St. Louis. These

and many other documents were used to create a tour that told a robust story of Creole

life on a plantation including those of slaves. The story of slavery was not glossed over

such as on the “Magnolia and Moonlight” tours of Oak Alley, Longwood, or Stanton Hall.

The tour of Laura embraces that fact that Alcée Fortier collected folktales in French

about Compair Lapin from the Senegambian former slaves that would be the basis of

what we know as the Br'er Rabbit stories.

Oak Alley Plantation and Laura Plantation both attract over one hundred

thousand visitors a year. Oak Alley presents a romanticized interpretation of plantation

life where visitors can enjoy a Mint Julep while being told about the antiques found in

the house. On the other hand, Laura presents an informative interpretation of plantation

life where visitors learn about the Creole life that includes not only the Creole people

born in Louisiana of European heritage but also the Creole people born from plantation



owners and their slaves. Laura Plantation has been restored after the tragic fire using

traditional methods employed by the local company Milton Freewater Construction.

Conversely, Oak Alley has been employing repair techniques that have not been

successful.


i PRST 6510 - Studio in Building Preservation – G. Cizek, M. Thomas, H. Knight – March 26, 2010

Sources

Blitzer, Carol Anne. “Rising from the Ashes: Laura Plantation Restored After

Catastrophic Fire in 2004.” The Advocate. December 17, 2006.

Block, Jennifer John. Reconstructing Creole. [S. l.]: Fresh Media Productions, 2006.

Explore the History and Culture of Southeastern Louisiana: A National Register of

Historic Places Travel Itinerary.

<http://www.nps.gov/history/NR/travel/louisiana/index.htm>

Library of Congress Historic American Buildings Survey Collection.

<http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/hh/>

Laura Plantation documentation. <http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/la0288/>

Oak Alley Plantation documentation. <http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/la0544/>

Louisiana Division of Historic Preservation's National Register Website.

<http://crt.louisiana.gov/hp/nationalregister/historicplacesdatabase.aspx>.

Laura Plantation House National Register document.

<http://crt.louisiana.gov/hp/nationalregister/nhl/document2.asp?

name=47007001.pdf>

Oak Alley Plantation National Register document.

<http://crt.louisiana.gov/hp/nationalregister/nhl/document2.asp?

name=47012001.pdf>

Matrana, Marc R. Lost Plantations of the South. Jackson: University Press of

Mississippi, 2009.

Oak Alley Plantation website. <http://www.oakalleyplantation.com>


ii PRST 6510 - Studio in Building Preservation – G. Cizek, M. Thomas, H. Knight – March 26, 2010

Images

Figure 1: Oak Alley Plantation House Figure 2: Laura Plantation House

Figure 3: Peripteral colonnade of colossal columns Figure 4: Portland cement used to repair column at Oak Alley at Oak Alley

Figure 5: Damage from electrical duct at Oak Alley Figure 6: Severe buckling of column at Oak Alley


iii PRST 6510 - Studio in Building Preservation – G. Cizek, M. Thomas, H. Knight – March 26, 2010

Figure 7: Laura Plantation house – front Figure 8: Laura Plantation house – rear

Figure 9: Scorched floor beams at Laura Figure 10: Mark of 15 for the House of 30 at Laura

All photographs were taken by the author.


field studies 05 - oak alley and laura

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