PETER W. PATOUT

​Peter Patout interviews another Natchoozian - a person that chose to move here. Watch this interview with Jeff Mansell, an Historian for the Natchez Historical Park Service, and see why he calls this historic city home.  

Sharon Rouse is a Natchoozian. She's found Natchez to be a wonderful place to live and especially enjoys the vibrant arts community. She why!

The luncheon includes two speakers, sumptuous hȃute Creole Cuisine and drinks, and is generously sponsored by Tableau as a benefit for the Louisiana Museum Foundation. We are thankful to Dickie Brennan and his team for their support. 

Pontalba family historian, Pierre de Pontalba will share his family’s legacy in France and New Orleans. Louisiana State Museum guest exhibition Curator Randolph Delehanty, PhD will preview the exhibition that will open Saturday, December 1 at the Founders Ball, and to the public on Sunday, December 2 at The Cabildo. ​

​Intimate Enemies New York Times book review

​Ironwork detail with the signature Almonester & Pontalba family logo from the Pontalba Apartments

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. 

Check your air conditioning unit every summer for efficiency to beat the heat.  There are State and Federal financial incentives such as renewable energy tax credits, special loans, and net metering if your system needs updating. Here are some helpful programs:

- Tax Credit for Solar and Wind
- Home Energy Loan Program “HELP”
- Louisiana Net Metering

Hiring a historic window specialist to glaze windows and secure their surround will help to sustain their longevity and efficiency. 

- Don’t remove original windows, just repair existing ones!

Your house will expand or swell in the summer, just like everything else in the South.  Harsh weather conditions will take effect, so make sure you plan according to make repairs to the masonry, brick, wood, or any other façade material after the peak of summer. 

- Do any repair work toward the fall months after the severity of expansion has subsided. 
- Spend summer months researching historic building specialists in anticipation of repairs.  This is a great time to shop reviews and get quotes. 

La Maison Hospitalière was founded in 1879 by Madame Coralie Correjolles, along with a Mrs. Ernestine Bouny and Mrs. Stephen Chalaron. These women organized “La Société Hospitalière des Dames Louisianaises,” which provided food and medicine to the needy of New Orleans, especially to the elderly women who lost their husbands during the Civil War and were destitute and living in squalor.
 
 By 1893, the Société was able to purchase their first building, located at 822 Barracks Street. The Société added a floor to the pre-existing one-story building dating back to the 1830s. Some time after 1919 they also added a gallery to the façade and arched door openings, which still exist today.
 
 Over 20 women lived in the home at first, and a Ms. Berthe Forcelle recalls in a memoir written in the 1930s that Mrs. Bouny and her servant Celestin would make tarts and pâtes feuillettes (puff pastries) and sell them throughout the French Quarter as a way to raise money for the Maison Hospitalière. As another form of raising money, Ms. Forcelle also mentions that “Miss Correjolles and Mrs. Bouny, with the aid of all the prominent ladies of the Carré, gave once a year, some form of entertainment; of which the most popular were fancy dances and tombola’s, given at the French Opera House […] The proceeds of these performances were always beyond expectations, for everybody was interested in that most worthy cause.”[1]


[1] Berthe Forcelle, “La Maison Hospitalière,” typed by A.W. Phillips, ca.1930. State Library of Louisiana (www.state.lib.la.us)

Over time the Société purchased over 13 buildings including neighboring buildings on Barracks and Dauphine Streets, and evolved into a skilled nursing facility with over 100 residents, both men and women. For 113 years La Maison Hospitalière provided full-service care in the French Quarter, until Hurricane Katrina dispersed both residents and staff across the county. La Maison Hospitalière was closed in November of 2006, and the site today is now being renovated as a condominium complex known as Maison du Parc.