Abandoned plantation complex in Louisiana

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The land on which Laura stands was originally owned by Andre Neau, who obtained it in a French royal land grant in 1755. The plantation became the property of the Dupare family in the late 1700s. The main house appears to have been built around 1820. The plantation was divided between two family members in 1876. The house continued in the hands of Dupare heirs until 1891. In that year Dupare descendant Laura Locoul sold the property to A. Florian Waguespack. However, a condition of the sale was that the plantation and house should continue to be called "Laura". The house was passed down through the succeeding generations of the Waguespack family until 1980, when the final Waguespack residents moved out. The house is now vacant.

Although Creole dwellings once dominated the rural landscape of central and southern Louisiana, today perhaps only 300 - 400 examples of these buildings remain standing outside New Orleans. Of these, the majority are small or moderately sized one story houses, while only approximately thirty are members of the distinct group of substantial raised plantation houses regarded as the apex of the Creole style. Laura is one of these.

Louisiana retains many plantation houses, but on the whole little attention has been given to preserving the coterie of dependencies that were the "workhorses" of cotton and sugar production. These support structures have lost their original utilitarian value and have either been left to fall down or been the victims of progress. Historically the landscape was dotted with hundreds of plantation complexes such as Laura, but today they are rare survivors. More often than not, an old plantation in the state retains only the "big house" and sometimes one or two support structures. Although not as important nor as large as Whitney or Evergreen, Laura is nevertheless one of only fifteen surviving plantation complexes in the state.

Laura's two-story house-like dependency is especially important. Although two-story garconnieres and servants' quarters which stood separate but near the main house were common in many Southern cities and towns during the antebellum period, this was not the case in Louisiana. Servants in New Orleans were often housed in two-story dependencies, but these were attached to the main house in the form of an "ell" such as at Gallier House. In rural areas residential dependencies were usually one-story structures. Only two grander two-story dependencies survive in rural Louisiana. One is at Southdown and the other at Laura.

Laura is one of less than a dozen complexes in which groups of slave or tenant cabins remain standing.

Site Description

Situated within what is believed to be the Mississippi River's longest remaining agrarian stretch between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the Laura plantation complex is located in St. James Parish just upriver from the west bank community of Vacherie. The complex consists of a large raised Creole "big house" and sixteen dependencies. These outbuildings include houses and sheds, two garages, a barn, a two-story dependency, and a set of six quarters cabins.

The Creole "big house" stands back from the River Road within a large, partially fenced yard. Seven of the dependencies also stand within the yard well to the rear of the mansion. A grove of trees largely obscures the house, and three of the outbuildings are also extremely overgrown by vegetation. The other dependencies are located outside the yard. Three stand downriver from the fenced area along a dirt road that parallels the river. Finally, the cabins stand in a row that lines one side of a second dirt road. This road runs perpendicular to the river and leads to the fields. Laura's fields have been planted in sugar cane continuously from the early 1800s to the present.

Constructed c. 1820, the main house at Laura is a raised French Creole plantation house with a brick basement story and a briquette-entre-poteaux (brick between posts) upper floor. The home contains Federal interior decorative elements but received Eastlake gallery ornamentation during the latter part of the nineteenth century. Otherwise, its Creole identity remains intact.

St. James Parish historians contend that Laura was built c. 1810 and remodeled in 1821 on the occasion of the marriage of Elizabeth Giles Dupare to George Raymond Locoul. However, no architectural evidence of an earlier home is evident within the surviving structure. Instead, the floor framing and woodwork indicate that the house was built all of a piece.

Creole characteristics found in the Laura main house include:

Laura's Federal details include door and window surrounds, paneled interior doors, and the decorative treatment of the wraparound mantels. The home's most elaborate mantel features molding, paneling and a layered mantel shelf. The other three are more restrained versions of this mantel. Other interesting features in the home include a brick herringbone floor and brick piers on the lower gallery and eight over twelve sash windows piercing the side walls of the end rooms. Only the bottom sashes of these windows move, a feature indicating their early date.

Although the Creole features of Laura are intact, the building has undergone some alteration over the years. The important changes are as follows:

Other changes include the loss of one wraparound mantel, the removal of a fireplace from the downriver upper floor room, the cutting off of the chimneys and the addition of dormers on the roof, and the covering of the original interior walls with sheetrock.

House (Building # 2):
This one-story frame linear cottage appears to date to the late nineteenth century. It has a rear ell wing, clapboard siding, tin roof, Italianate front door, and Eastlake gallery trim with unusual brackets.

Shed (Building # 3):
This board and batten shed dates to the early twentieth century. A lean-to is attached at one side.

Shed (Building # 4):
This small rectangular shed is covered by vertical boards. It has a tin roof and a lean-to attached at one side. It also dates to the early twentieth century.

Small Barn (Building # 5):
This small frame barn with a tin roof has lean-to sheds attached to each side. It dates to the early twentieth century.

Garage (Building # 6):
This early twentieth-century garage is also covered by vertical boards and a tin roof.

Two-Story Dependency (Building # 8):
Although its precise use is not known, this dependency resembles the type of two-story antebellum servants' quarters and garconnieres found in urban areas in other Southern states. Dating to the mid-nineteenth century, it is two stories tall, five rooms wide, and one room deep. One end room on each floor serves as a stair hall. The structure is of brick with a wood-covered facade. Its dormered roof is covered by tin. Original features include vernacular French Creole wraparound mantels and exposed beaded ceiling beams, both on the second floor. This story also has wide floorboards and early windows with immovable upper sashes. In the late nineteenth century, the lower story was renovated, complete with new mantels, and the entire second-story gallery was replaced with an Eastlake gallery. The gallery is now quite dilapidated; however, Eastlake corner boards and some Eastlake trim survive as does a portion of a curving Eastlake staircase.

House (Building # 9):
This late nineteenth-century frame building has narrow gauge clapboard siding and a tin roof. It shows Creole influence in its three sets of French doors and exposed gallery ceiling beams. Its central door is surmounted by a transom. A board and batten addition is located at the rear.

Garage (Building # 10):
This frame board and batten garage dates to the early twentieth century.

House (Building # 11):
This frame cottage with a screened front porch dates to the turn of the twentieth century.

Quarters Cabins (Buildings # 12 - 17):
The six small cabins surviving on the property appear to be original slave quarters which received major repairs in the late nineteenth century after being moved from their original location behind the main house. This work was so extensive that these buildings should be considered late nineteenth-century quarters houses for all practical purposes. Surviving early elements include pegged French joinery, square nail holes in the facades' flush board siding, and boxed flues indicating that wraparound mantels were once present. The interior walls are covered by beaded board and several of the structures have had rear wings or lean-tos added. In addition, all have had their clapboard siding pieced together or replaced by tin, and all but one have lost their chimneys.

Building # 7:
A small one-story frame building that stands next to the two-story dependency. It appears to date to the late nineteenth century. Its original use is unknown. It is in an advanced state of deterioration.

(1992)