Bayside Plantation

Bayside Plantation | ICAA TOUR | Thrusday, November 2

Bayside Plantation is located on Bayou Teche, “Louisiana’s Most Famous Bayou”.[1]  It is approximately 100 miles from both New Orleans’ Louis Armstrong Airport and Baton Rouge, and 250 miles from Houston, Texas.  Bayside is a well-maintained and historic rural estate on 14+- acres in Jeanerette, Louisiana, near New Iberia and the renowned Avery Island, where Tabasco Hot Sauce is made.[2]  In 1987, Bayside Plantation was listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its architectural significance in the Greek Revival style and distinctively being one of only four two-story Greek Revival mansions with two-story masonry columns in Bayou Teche Country (The three others being Oaklawn, Shadows-on-the-Teche, and Arlington.)
 
In 1850, Colonel Francis Dubose Richardson (1812-1901) built Bayside Plantation.  Richardson was a successful state legislator prior to the Civil War and it is said he was good friends with the famous author Edgar Allen Poe.  During the Civil War, Richardson is credited with floating a barge of burning hay in the direct path of Union gunboats during the Bayou Teche Country Campaign.
 
Bayside Plantation was aptly named for an old grove of Bay trees that one graced the property.  Today, the estate is surrounded by sprawling ancient moss laden live oak trees.  The two-story white brick structure is fronted by picturesque upper and lower galleries supported by six full height Tuscan columns, which are set on high pedestals. On the upper gallery, an ornate wooden balustrade runs between them.  The transoms and sidelights of the doors are set into the recesses of thick brick walls.  Bayside displays an “American” floor plan consisting of a central hall with two rooms on each side on both floors.  The house has four bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms.  In 1967, the upper-rear gallery was enclosed for additional rooms.  The walls of these rooms are of wide wooden boards from ancient heart pine trees that once stood in the backyard before being downed by Hurricane Hilda.  The rear gallery of Bayside contains a large screen porch that has served generations of Southern families.
 
Original features at Bayside Plantation include: three Carrara marble mantels, two wood mantels, extensive Greek Key molding, Cypress doors with original hardware, a cherry and walnut staircase and beautiful long-leaf Pine flooring.  The house retains much of its original blown glass window panes.  In the early 1960s a side wing and large barn were constructed.  Behind the plantation, a masonry Milk House remains as the only 19th century dependency of the estate.