Melrose Plantation - Yucca, Melrose Louisiana

Date added: July 09, 2023 Categories: Louisiana House Plantations & Farms

Melrose Plantation is quite unique in that it was owned and built by free African Americans through several generations. The Big House was built in 1833 by Louis Meteyer Jr., a free African American. The designs of the African House and Ghana House at Melrose are of African style.

Melrose is also important as the house of Mrs. Cammie Gicrekt hear whose patronage of the arts and preservation of local artifacts was the beginning of a movement to preserve the heritage of Natchitoches Parish. Her enthusiasm for the state's history and folkways inspired others to seek out, to preserve and to protect reminders of the past. Her house was a mecca for authors, artists, architects, horticulturists and those interested in the various handcrafts that she revived.

Among the writers who resided at Melrose was Lyle Saxon who lived in Yucca House and worked on some of his books there, making use of Mrs. Henry's vast collection of scrapbooks, The French journalist, Francois Mignon lived at Melrose until 1970 and produced a series of decorative plates illustrating the historic Natchitoches area, tape recordings of a visit to Melrose and some writings. The noted African American primitive artist Clementine Hunter painted a panorama of Louisiana plantation life on the walls of the upper room of the African House.

Site Description

The buildings of Melrose Plantation include the Big House, the African House behind it, the Yucca House, the Ghana House, the Writers Cabin, the Weaving House, the Bindery and the Barn. All these buildings with the exception of the Writers Cabin, the Weaving House and the Bindery are on their original sites. The three exceptions were moved to Melrose by Mrs. Cammie Garrett Henry, the last private owner. They are old buildings from the vicinity but not original to this plantation. The various buildings are described as follows:

The Big House is a raised basement type plantation in the Louisiana French Colonial style with early Greek Revival details. The walls of the basement story are of brick masonry, painted. The exterior walls of the upper story are covered with weatherboards, and are probably of colombage construction with either bricks or mud and moss (bouzillage) between the posts. A gallery extends across the entire front and rear of the house with square brick piers on the lower story, and chamfered wood columns on the upper. The hipped roof, covered with wood shingles, extends over the galleries. Stairways on the galleries provide access to the upper floor. The attic is lighted by well-proportioned dormer windows, and is unfinished but accessible by a small rear ladder-like stair, The rooms on the upper story are plastered with wood ceilings. The mantels on both stories are of wood with rather unusual paneled over-mantels. There is a single chimney. The house is only one room in depth with two large rooms on each floor and a small room or cabinet at each end of the rear gallery. French doors open from each room to the front and rear galleries. At either end of the front gallery, a two-story pyramidal roofed, hexagonal pavilion was added during the Henry ownership period. A two-story rear kitchen wing was also added during this period and spoils the effect of the rear facade.

The African House is a unique nearly square structure, directly in the rear of the Big House and may have been intended as a stable on the ground floor and quarters or storage above. The ground floor walls are of heavy horizontal, square timbers, dove-tailed at the corners, the "piece sur piece" type of construction used by the earliest French settlers in Louisiana. The great hipped, shingled roof almost conceals the upper story and extends some ten feet beyond the exterior walls on all four sides, supported by round log struts extending out from above the brick wall to the plate that supports the rafters. The absence of supporting columns gives the building a curious umbrella-like appearance that is believed to be of African derivation.

The Yucca House, said to be the original plantation house or former slave hospital is a long, rectangular structure with galleries front and rear, the floor level being only a foot or so above the ground. The walls are of colombage construction, a heavy frame of squared timbers, morticed and tennoned and pegged to sills and plates, the spaces between the timbers filled with mud and moss or animal hair. The galleries may have originally extended also across the ends of the house, but have long been enclosed so that the floor plan now consists of two large rooms each with its separate fireplace and brick chimney, and the end or gallery rooms. The ceilings all have exposed wood beams. Doors and windows had batten shutters, with interesting wood barred grilles at the windows. The present gallery columns are peeled cypress logs and are probably not original.

Ghana House is a one-story, one-room structure of heavy squared logs laid horizontally and dove-tailed at the corners like the upper story of the African house. The double-pitched, hipped roof with wide overhanging eaves, does not appear to be original nor does the stone chimney. The present foundation consists only of four stones supporting the sills, one at each corner of the building. This small building is of interest because of its wall construction.

The Writers Cabin. This small cabin of round log construction, stone chimney, and low-pitched roof is one of the small buildings moved to Melrose Plantation by Mrs. Henry. It is interesting as illustrating a different construction technique.

The Weaving House is a small rectangular, gable-ended structure with an outside stone chimney at one end. It is another of the buildings collected by Mrs. Henry and re-erected here.

The Bindery is another small rectangular, gable-ended house with a gallery front and rear, The roof, extending out over these galleries provides a large attic space lighted by windows in the gable and a dormer. The wall construction is of squared logs, dove-tailed at the corners, A Greek Revival entrance door is evidently from some unrelated structure.

The Barn is a rectangular frame structure with a hipped roof which extends over the front and rear where it is supported on peeled log columns. The roof is now covered with corrugated sheet iron but was probably originally wood shingles. A small storage building of somewhat similar frame construction completes the complex of Melrose buildings.