Desire Plantation House, Vacherie Louisiana

Date added: July 17, 2023 Categories: Louisiana House Plantations & Farms

Desire Plantation House is the only remaining plantation associated with the historically important perique tobacco industry of St. James Parish.

There were attempts to cultivate tobacco in much of Louisiana during the eighteenth century, chiefly for the purpose of making the European market independent of British tobacco grown in the eastern colonies. By the 1780's the Louisiana area produced about a half million pounds annually. But in the nineteenth century, tobacco was largely displaced by sugar and cotton. By the mid-nineteenth century, the only remaining tobacco growing area was St. James Parish, where perique tobacco was produced on a small commercial scale by family farmers. Perique is a pungent flavorful black tobacco cured by fermentation in its own juice under pressure. Regarded as a rare and exotic product, it is used to "flavor" other tobaccos in pipe and cigar blends. Much prized, its consumption traditionally has been the province of connoisseurs, and most of it has been produced for the European market.

Although secondary to sugar, perique tobacco has made a substantial contribution to the agricultural economy of St. James Parish over the years. For example, in 1922, 478,000 pounds were produced, bringing over a quarter of a million dollars into "the local economy. But production has declined in recent decades, and Desire Plantation House is now believed to be the only remaining historic structure associated with the perique tobacco cottage industry. Desire is a particularly important resource because in addition to being the home of a perique tobacco grower, it also housed a perique cigar factory. Its historic role as a factory is substantiated by an 1891 United States Internal Revenue cigar manufacturing certificate issued to Desire LeBlanc, the owner, for the purpose of operating "Manufactory No. 79" in "one of his back rooms of his dwelling house." The certificate even has a sketch of the floor plan. Other stamps, permits and legers in possession of the owner demonstrate that cigars were being manufactured at Desire from at least 1891 to 1904.

Building Description

Desire Plantation House (c.1835) is a bousillage Creole cottage located in a flat rural area near Vacherie.

Originally Desire consisted of a four-room, pitched roof, galleried mass with two front doors and a single central chimney serving the two front rooms. Apparently, there was also a rear gallery set between cabinets. Most of this original house survives, including the form, the bousillage walls, the fenestration, most of the board and batten doors, most of the windows, and most of the plan. (The cabinets have been lost.) In addition, the house retains its crude but more or less correctly proportioned Greek Revival front gallery and one of its two original wraparound mantels. The mantel features simple pilasters and a board entablature.

In the late nineteenth century, the house received a frame rear wing that incorporated the old rear gallery. In addition, a gable dormer with decoratively cut vergeboards was added to the front.

More recently, the rear wing has acquired a small lean-to extension and porch on the east side. Also, the two front French doors have been replaced, and as previously mentioned, one of the original mantels has been lost.