Plantation house in Louisiana

Destrehan Plantation, Destrehan Louisiana

Date added: March 22, 2023 Categories: Louisiana House Plantations & Farms

In 1787 Antoine Robert Robin de Logny began construction of a new house on his 28-arpent front plantation. The contractor de Logny selected was Charles, a Free Person of Color. He was assisted by six African-Americans, at least three of whom were from the Robin de Logny plantation slave force. On April 22, 1790 Charles put his mark on an affirmation that the house was completed and he had been paid as contracted.

On December 11, 1792, Pierre Robin de Logny, son of Antoine Robert Robin de Logny, purchased the plantation, with 56 slaves, at a public auction. On April 12, 1802, he sold the plantation to Jean Noel Destrehan, his brother-in-law. The house assumed its present size (i.e., a two-story main block with attached flanking garconnieres) during Destrehan's ownership. Destrehan also replaced indigo with cane cultivation on the estate. The memoirs of Pierre Clement de Laussat indicate that sugar production was well established at the plantation by 1803.

Destrehan died in 1823, and his wife only survived him by two years. On March 23, 1825, Stephen Henderson purchased the plantation and 83 slaves for $114,400. Henderson continued the intensive sugar agriculture pursued by Jean Noel Destrehan.

Henderson died in 1838. A relatively conscientious and magnanimous slave-holder, he planned to emancipate his slaves after his death. However, the executors of his estate sold the plantation and the slaves attached to it to Pierre Adolphe Rost on April 11, 1839.

Apparently Destrehan was leased during the Civil War to the partnership of Brott and Denis. This may have been the partnership of Brott and Davis, Northerners who leased a total of six plantations in 1863. Rost and his family were in Europe at this time, and Rost was serving as the Commissioner to Spain for the Confederacy. Brott and Davis paid their laborers a standard wage in addition to a share of the profits. Brott and Davis' overseer reported that the African-Americans on the plantation appeared to be contented with this system, and that they produced fully one-third more than they had as slaves. Despite this, Destrehan had deteriorated by the time it was seized by Union authorities in 1864.

Destrehan Plantation, probably because of its size and extensive structural improvements, was assigned to the control of the Freedmen's Bureau for use as a colony for refugee Freedmen. Known as the Rost Home Colony, the plantation had an average population of 700 individuals at any given time. Of the four colonies established by the bureau, the Rost Home Colony was the most successful. Residents were provided with wages, food, clothing, and health care in exchange for 10 hours per day labor for individuals above the age of 14. Rations were withheld from individuals who did not work. Cane, corn, cotton, and sweet potatoes were all cultivated at the estate.

Rost was pardoned in 1866, and he regained title to Destrehan. The Freedman's Bureau arranged to rent Destrehan from him for the remainder of the year for a percentage of the proceeds of the year's sugar and rice crops. After paying the rent on the plantation, the Freedman's Bureau made a profit of $14,150.

P.A. Rost died in 1868. His son, Emile Rost, assumed management of Destrehan and continued to pursue commercial agriculture until he sold the plantation in 1910.

Building Description

Destrehan consists of a central, two story house with open galleries on three sides and flanking two story wings separated from the main body of the house by the side galleries. The central unit, the oldest part of the house, apparently originally had a colonnade surrounding it, composed of masonry columns on the ground floor and wood ones on the upper, in the manner of Homeplace plantation across the river at Hahnville. The roof is double-pitched all around, the steeply pitched center part being framed on to the main walls of the house and then extended over the galleries at a lesser pitch. On the front are three small dormer windows with one only on the rear. These have been altered in detail but retain their original form. The walls of the ground floor are of brick masonry, plastered, scored and painted at one time to imitate granite. The walls of the upper story are of colombage, a wood frame filled in with masonry. The plan consists of six rooms on each floor, three in front and three in the rear. The rear galleries have been enclosed with weatherboards and windows. The original gallery columns were replaced in the 1830's or 40's with massive Greek revival Doric columns of plastered brick and the cornice was altered accordingly. At the same time all the interior details, trim, mantels, etc. were changed.