Mary Plantation House, Braithwaite Louisiana

Date added: March 23, 2024 Categories:

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Mary Plantation House is one of Louisiana's finest examples of French colonial-style architecture. It is a classic example of a nationally recognized style found in limited numbers in the state. Though many houses were built similar to it in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, few of these have survived. In all likelihood fewer than thirty first-rate examples of large French colonial-style plantation houses remain in the state.

Features that make Mary a classic example of the French colonial style include; its large hip roof; its chamfered upper gallery columns; its large hall-less cabinet plan; its use of brick-between-posts construction on the upper story; its use of French doors, exposed beaded beams, and wraparound mantels; and its placement of chimneys against the interior partition walls.

Mary is also important because it has retained most of its original hardware.

The divided French doors are thought to be unique in Louisiana. They are important because they show a desire for a central entrance and symmetry and hence exhibit an early hesitant touch of the Anglo-American influence in the Creole architectural tradition of Louisiana. Much of the architectural history of French Louisiana involves the transition from Creole architecture to Anglo-American architecture.

Building Description

Mary Plantation House (c.1820) is a two-story brick-between-posts Creole plantation house located in a lush tropical garden on the east bank of the Mississippi River is approximately six miles southwest of the town of Braithwaite.

Mary began as a two-story hip-roof plantation house with brick construction below and brick-between-posts construction above. Each story had a floor plan two rooms wide and two rooms deep with a small enclosed stair hall in the rear where one would normally expect to find a small gallery. The only open gallery was in front. The sides and rear of the upper story were sheathed in clapboards.

In about 1840, a new larger hip roof was built which provided for galleries on all four sides of the house. The original hip roof structure was left beneath the larger roof. The new galleries featured simple chamfered cypress columns upstairs and stuccoed brick columns downstairs. Little else was changed in the house. The original 12 over 12 windows were left as were the original 12 light French doors with their ram's horn hinges. The elaborately planed Adams type wraparound mantels were also left.

Mary's most unusual feature is its wide front doorways, both upstairs and down. Each is set in the center of the facade at the point where the wall divides the two large front rooms of the house. Each doorway contains a divided pair of French doors, one of which goes into each of the front rooms. Each pair of French doors is divided by a broad pilaster. The upper pair has a false transom and is divided by a decoratively planed pilaster which echoes the styling of the mantels.

Most of the ceilings have exposed beams. The board and batten shutters are mounted with strap hinges which are held in place by screws. It is not known whether these screws are original or whether they were part of a 1948 restoration.

Since the c.1840 alterations, the following changes have occurred in the house; one of the four original mantels has been lost; two bathrooms have been installed upstairs and one downstairs; arches have been cut between the front and rear rooms downstairs; the old stuccoed brick columns downstairs have been replaced with cast concrete columns which appear to more or less duplicate the original design.