Bocage Plantation House, Darrow Louisiana

Date added: March 18, 2024 Categories: Louisiana House Plantations & Farms Greek Revival Dakin, James H.

The property on which Bocage stands is associated with the Bringiers, an old Louisiana family. The house is generally believed to have been built by Emanuel Marius Pons Bringier as a wedding gift for his fourteen-year-old daughter, Francoise, who married Christophe Colomb on January 24^th, 1801. However, no architectural evidence supporting the existence of an early 1800s house has survived.

The Bocage tradition also suggests that the 1801 house was remodeled in the Greek Revival style around 1840 by the renowned nineteenth-century architect James Dakin. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the Dakin connection may be true. Primary sources exist proving that Dakin did work for the Bringier family, and the in antis treatment of the rear gallery is a clearly recognized characteristic of the architect's work.

The 1941 restoration was accomplished by Dr. Edwin G. Kohlsdorf and his wife, Dr. Anita L. Crozat Kohlsdorf, of New Orleans. They were assisted in the endeavor by master carpenter Francois Chauvin.

Bocage is a superb and rare surviving example of the grand Greek Revival plantation homes which once lined Louisiana's Great River Road between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. It illustrates the extremely rare use of mid-nineteenth-century architectural pattern book designs in Louisiana.

Architecturally, Louisiana is best known for its fine collections of French Creole houses and grand Greek Revival plantation homes. The state's most famous and recognizable group of monumental Greek Revival plantations is found on the historic River Road. These homes, built by immensely wealthy sugar cane planters during the thirty years before the Civil War, were the absolute apex of the Greek Revival style in Louisiana. They may be briefly characterized as two-story mansions with broad double galleries (sometimes encircling the house) and monumental columns or pillars that rise to the roofline in one continuous shaft. When fully encircling galleries are present, the columns also encircle the house in what is known as the peripheral mode. No one will ever know the exact number of these houses. However, an 1858 map of Mississippi River land holdings suggests that many more once existed than have survived. Today, only eight River Road Greek Revival landmark plantation houses remain. Bocage is one of these monumental Greek Revival houses.

Bocage is especially noteworthy for its parapet, a feature found on only one other River Road home. The majority of the Road's Greek Revival houses have hipped roofs. As a result, Bocage more closely imitates the classical massing of Greek architecture.

The splendid Greek Revival anthemion and patera door surround encasing Bocage's second-floor pocket door is one of only a handful of known examples of pattern book influence on Louisiana architecture.

Building Description

Bocage is a grand, two-story Greek Revival mansion located on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Ascension Parish. Its lower story is stucco over brick; the upper floor is stucco over wood. A long-honored Louisiana tradition suggests that Bocage was built in 1801 and remodeled to its present appearance around 1840. However, if an earlier home once existed, the 1840 house so encased it that no architectural evidence of it survives. Bocage was designed by an architect well-skilled in the Greek Revival idiom. For this reason, it contains a larger number of articulated features than would a vernacular Greek Revival home.

Colossal plastered brick Tuscan pillars highlighting the facade's full length double gallery. These pillars are unusual because their symmetrical rhythm is interrupted by the insertion of two thinner pillars which mark the location of the facade's primary upper and lower story entrances.

A splendid anthemion and patera door surround encasing a second-floor set of pocket doors. The design for this feature is taken directly from Plate 26 of Minard Lafever's 1835 builders' pattern, book, Beauties of Modern Architecture.

A symmetrical but unusual floorplan that inserts a double parlor in the place of a center hall. Unusually high sixteen-foot second-floor ceilings are an additional highlight of the plan.

Although Bocage's primary architectural thrust is Greek Revival, its architect also seems to have been influenced by Louisiana's native French Creole tradition. Consciously included in the home's design are French doors, a rear exterior staircase, and cabinet rooms flanking the rear loggia. In addition, the home's upper floor originally served as the premier etage, or primary living space, while the lower floor was used as a service and storage area. This method of spatial organization is a well-known characteristic of the Creole tradition.

Historic photographs show that Bocage's front exterior staircase was changed at least three times. It has since been removed. Other than this change, the exterior appears exactly as it did upon its completion c. 1840. Alterations to the interior have been more extensive. All occurred as the result of a major 1941 restoration. It is easier to understand the extent of the restoration if the work is discussed in broad categories:

The roughly finished lower floor service area was more finely finished for use as living space. Alterations made in connection with this change include: the replacement of the old wooden floor with one of marble, the conversion of one cabinet for use as a kitchen, the conversion of the second cabinet into a laundry and furnace room, the addition of a curved interior staircase. Space for the stair was carved from large first and second-story rooms located on the left side of the home. Closets were added to the now smaller first-floor room behind the new stairway. The remaining space is used as a breakfast room.

Other changes included; the installation of salvaged Federal style mantels, the addition of molding to the ceiling. The pattern for this molding was copied from that used on the upper floor; the installation of a bathroom.

Changes were made to the plan of the second floor. These include: the subdivision of the central rooms on either side of the double parlor to create bathrooms, closets, and access corridors, and by moving one second-floor cabinet wall to make the room larger.

Damage and loss of interior detailing necessitated repair and, in some cases, replacement of important elements. These include: the replacement of the lost second-floor mantels with new mantels which feature shoulder molding, the repair and duplication of missing patera, and the replacement of lost plaster ceiling medallions.

The balustrade outlining the second-floor front gallery was also rehabilitated in 1941.

Two additional structures exist on the property. Both are circular brick structures with conical wood shingle roofs. A part of the 1941 restoration, their shape was inspired by the powder magazines of Colonial Williamsburg. Located near the mansion's rear corners, one dependency serves as a shed for garden tools; the other was formerly a well house.