El Dorado Plantation House, Livonia Louisiana

Date added: July 24, 2023 Categories: Louisiana House Plantations & Farms

El Dorado Plantation was made out of lands purchased by David Barrow in the 1850s. His purchase of 1854 from Joseph Lallande included Section 89 (which contains the house) and much of what is El Dorado today. Of the owners, David Barrow (1805-74) and his wife, Susan Woolfolk Barrow, and his son, Bartholemew Barrow (1836-69), who married Martha Leonora Semple, are the most conspicuous, being members of the large, successful and prosperous Barrow family of Louisiana. By the mid-1850s, David Barrow kept his main residence at Afton Villa in St, Francisville, one of the most important Gothic Revival buildings of the nineteenth century, but focused his main business activity on plantations in Pointe Coupee Parish. His son resided at E1 Dorado after his marriage in the late 1850s. A part of the history of the place is their ownership during the affluent 1850s and during the hard times of Reconstruction. Evidence suggests that the Barrows gave the plantation the name El Dorado; it does not appear before their ownership.

The previous owner of the house, Joseph Lallande, is believed to have built it, but little is known about him except for his family's presence in Louisiana history. Lallande purchased the land from H.B. Cenas and his partners in 1839. Since then, the house has been owned by successful professional and business families of New Orleans, following the sale by the Barrows.

In the mid-1830s, before Cenas et al purchased most of the land, there were individual owners, section by section along the bayou, with various owners owning various lands to the back. Of these people, only their names as recorded on patent confirmations and on a few minor records remain, Section 89, on which the house is built, was acquired by Cenas et al from Joseph de Bustamente and Clemente Bariente in December, 1835. A Manuel Bustamente witnesses a legal document relative to Nacogdoches in 1805. L. A. Hubert, quite possibly the same L. A. Hubert from whom Lallande purchased Section 85, witnesses on June 15, 1836, a sale involving Olivo land, which was a grant of 1787 by the Spanish crown of land along Bayou Grosse Tete.

The existence of plantations along the Mississippi in Pointe Coupee by the early 1760s, along Bayou Grosse Tete and Maringouin by the late 1780s, and along the east bank of the Atchafalaya in Ascension Parish by 1806, can be seen in titles; these titles also contain a few, but significant, mentions of plantation buildings.

Of particular interest are grants of November 17, 1787. George Olivo (Oliveau) gets 20 arpents by 40 deep on Bayou Grosse Tete; Henry Olivo gets 20 x 40 on the east bank of the same bayou; and Santiago de la Rosa and Joseph Alvarez receive two contiguous tracts on the west bank of Bayou Grosse Tete a few miles below Bayou Maringouin, each tract being 40 arpents front on the bayou by 40 deep, these northwest of El Dorado.

Briefly summarized, El Dorado has a clear title of use and ownership going back to the mid-1830s, but it lies in an area settled by the 1780s.

Building Description

El Dorado Plantation House is a story and a half, medium to large Greek Revival raised plantation house, It is set in a large landscape of live oaks and open fields with wild growth along the bayou and various distant fields.

The house is a gable-end frame construction with exterior chimneys, very much in the American taste that was almost universal in Louisiana from 1830 on. The plan consists of a porch across the front (northeast) with three rooms parallel to it; three more rooms go across the back and a back porch runs the length of the house (southwest). The porches are under the main roof mass. Tradition and fabric record a cabinet at the west end of the back porch, now reworked except for its northwest wall with a window. The south end of this porch is now closed in with a utility room. An open porch area remains between these new constructions. There are three dormers on the front. The house measures, above the base, about 58' 6" wide and 48' 8" deep. Of this, the front porch is about 9' 10" deep, The first floor is about 4' 5" to 4' 9" above grade; first floor ceilings are 13' 10" high; the second floor is about 10' 2"; and from the finished second floor to the top of the rafters at the ridge is 15' 1".

The plan consists of an entry with a stair on the right wall, landing at the front wall. Behind this room is another center room slightly wider, To the left is the front (east) parlor, behind which is the slightly narrower back (south) parlor. To the right is the front (north) bedroom, behind which lies the narrower back (west) bedroom, behind which was the original cabinet construction. The center back room connects with the back parlor and back bedroom by a single-acting door, the first-floor bedrooms also have a single-acting door between them. The second floor consists of a central room lit by the central dormer. From here, a finished windowless room opens to the front on the east side of the dormer, and two exterior rooms open one to each side. A single-acting door under the stair and a new pair of doors connect the entry to the north bedroom and to the front parlor.

An investigation under the house shows clear evidence of an older structure below. Running side to side under the front, center, and back walls of the house are beams 14" wide and 10¼" high, hand cut on the sides and smooth cut on the bottoms. The interior brick piers are typically 30" x 13", with the step footing below grade. There are three such piers at the central axis of the house; these, however, are flanked on each side by 27" x 13" piers whose step footings start about 5" above grade. Each old beam is therefore supported in its center area by a pair of these variant piers, and in the center and for the rest of their length, by the typical pier type. In addition, below the door from the entry hall to the front parlor, the bottom of a double chimney with, again, about 5" of its step footing remains. On each side, short 14" x 10¼" beams are found. The chimney was cut off below floor level, but has settled less than the other masonry, causing a bulge in the floor above. There are remnants of old beam framing in the area of the west cabinet, but beams of the side walls and of the porches have gone. A mortise in the southeast end of the back beam suggests a joint with an original beam on that side. It seems fairly well indicated that the house on top had its dimension established by the work below. The location of the chimney inside the house was typical of Creole construction, just as the present exterior chimneys indicate the American taste. The incorporation of such an earlier structure in such a house is of importance.

Finishes are typical; generously sized weatherboards; milled frames, trim, doors and windows; plaster walls and cornices. The floors are wood. The roofing (undoubtedly smooth wood shingles or slate originally) is a modern asphaltic tile. Original hardware has vanished except in the door between the parlors.

The millwork provides the key to dating the building. Except for the enclosure of the back porch and an entirely new front porch, constructed in the 1960s along lines duplicating the original, changes to the millwork are minor. On the gable ends of the house, in the downstairs bedrooms and back center room, and in the attic, the trim is all of a typical Greek Revival style. All first-floor single-acting doors have transoms with a Greek Revival "plaid" pattern in the muntins. The three remaining chimneys have Greek Revival "dog eared" style mantels. Old doors have two vertical panels at the top and bottom; above the lock rail is a horizontal panel. Again, a Greek Revival design. A paint analysis would reveal if the panel molds, which are bold in scale and unusual in section, are from the first stage of construction. We judge this work to date about 1840.

Contrasting with this work is millwork of the late 1850s. Large pairs of typically paneled pocket doors with 1850s moldings on the trim connect the entry hall with the room behind: the parlors are similarly connected, but here the floor shows no marks similar to those in the entry where the large doors were obviously replaced a single-acting door. On the front porch, the Greek Revival door frame and transom were altered with 1850s moldings and a twentieth-century pair of doors. The four front windows have 1850-type frames, and sash suggesting the 1860s, no signs of transoms and French doors were observed, although they would have been typical. The first-floor baseboards suggest the 1850s. The stair newel is, again, of the 1850s while the rail, showing a change in spindles near the newel, has turned spindles of a Greek Revival type on the ascent; above, these mix with a later type.

All of these changes are typical of mid-nineteenth-century remodeling where changes of moldings and opening up rooms with large doors or arches could bring a house up to date.

The plasterwork is intact except for the second-floor ceilings. The cornices are significant. They are rather more high-style than one would have expected in such a modest house. Those in the first-floor bedrooms are correct run moldings typical of the 1840s. In the four main first-floor rooms, the run members are ornamented with egg and dart and bead moldings similar to those illustrated in Minard Lefevre's books; in addition, a fine, deeply carved bas-relief of a pole with leaves encircling it is added in the three main rooms. The design is typical of the late Greek Revival and is of exceptional quality for this area. A centerpiece in the hall, provided with a hook for an oil lamp, has as its center a not-unknown 1850s pattern of large acanthus leaves in a swirling design. This is superimposed on bold castings in a pattern made of pure Greek Revival elements.

The west bedroom has, under a modern coat of paint, a field of bright blue on which extensive frescoes have been applied. Over the mantel a panel was made with a border of fasces in browns and golds; inside, at the bottom, can be seen a symmetrical layout of leaves in greens. The scale of the work and its design seem clearly to be of the Greek Revival style. On the other walls of the room there are evidence of small trees with large white buds starting low on the wall and going up about seven or eight feet, all in grisaille on the blue background. The later paint is easily removed in some cases; certain areas have cracks and others have a skim coat of plaster, but extensive areas of original work apparently remain.

Known changes to the nineteenth-century house were made primarily in the 1950's and 1960's. The most important change to the house is the front porch, which was removed in the fifties. A new soffit beam was installed just behind the original, and large boxed columns ran down to a new brick floor just above grade. The front door was reached by a double curved stair, each curve reaching to a landing in front of the door.

In 1963-64 this porch was removed and replaced with a wood porch at the correct level duplicating the original. At this time the back porch, which was all open and in perilous condition, was put in its present state. Also, exterior brick piers and chimneys were stuccoed, and the rotted beams at the side walls of the house were removed and studs inserted. The attic rafters were supplemented with new ones, plywood sheathing, new roof tiles, and new stock gutters and downspouts were added. At this same time, the second of the two-story brick back buildings was destroyed by a storm, just at the time of its proposed renovation. Its mate had been destroyed by the actions of a sub-lessee, who had also remodeled the front porch.

Other changes are more limited in scope. The front parlor chimney and fireplace are gone. The single-acting door between the entry and front parlor is now a small pair of doors flanked, in the parlor, by boxed pipes and bookshelves. A door from the center back room to the west cabinet (now two bathrooms) was originally a double-hung sash. The west bedroom has on the pack wall two openings which originally were single-acting doors with transoms, suggesting a small cabinet and access to the porch, or two cabinets. In the back parlor, the door at the outside and of the back wall was once a double-hung sash, and a single-acting door next to it has been closed up.

Approximately 700 feet behind the house is a metal sided shed used to store farm equipment.