Ardoyne Plantation House | |
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| Nearest city | Houma, Louisiana |
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| Coordinates | 29°38′57″N90°49′10″W / 29.64917°N 90.81944°W |
| Area | 8.4 acres (3.4 ha) |
| Built | 1894 |
| Architect | Williams, W. C. & Brothers |
| Architectural style | Gothic |
| NRHP reference No. | 82000469 [1] |
| Added to NRHP | November 01, 1982 |
Ardoyne Plantation House [2] is located on Highway 311 in Schriever, Louisiana, just northwest of Houma, Louisiana. It was built 1894 and added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 1, 1982.
Louisiana State Senator, and third generation sugar cane farmer, John Dalton Shaffer was looking for a home for his wife, Julia Richardson Cutliff Shaffer. [3] [4] Mrs. Shaffer requested that her husband build her a little cottage that overlooked Bayou Black. In 1888, he purchased approximately one thousand acres of land in Schriever, Louisiana. He then commissioned New Orleans based architect, John Williams of Williams and Brothers to design and build the main residence on a twenty-acre tract. The location of the house on the property lead, in part, to the name. “Ardoyne” in Scottish means “little hill or knoll” [5] which was the high point of the property, and the name of a Scottish castle. The construction of the main residence began in 1890 and was completed in 1894. Local immigrants of German, Italian and African descent contributed the labor to build the residence and later would comprise a good portion of the labor force that would work the remaining land. These same immigrant workers harvested the cypress and pine trees from the land that was then sent to a mill in St. Louis, Missouri to become the construction lumber for the house.
Ardoyne Plantation is set in a cluster of live oak trees overlooking Bayou Black. This two-story home stands starkly different than the other homes of this era. Looking at the front, the Gothic Revival architecture design adds elements that capture the attention. There is a seventy-five-foot tower at the left, as seen from the front, and two high gables. The tower is “iced” with fine mill work, commonly referred to as “gingerbread”. This “gingerbread” is continued around the top of the gables. The steep roof line accentuates the tower and gables. The walk through window in the tower contrasts with the bay widow of the left gable. The right gable, much narrower and equally as steep, barely frames the window it protects. The entrance porch is supported by square wooden columns, bannisters and high, walk-in windows. The double entrance door is directly below the center gable of the house, but just a little off-centered to the right side. The boldness of the second story tower, gables and windows overshadow the simple entrance doorway. The woodwork for the house, which was milled from the trees from the property, is present in every room of the house. Floors, walls, ceilings and molding are all native wood. There is a seventy-foot-long hallway that leads to a curving cypress stairwell that leads to the second floor. The plantation office is located on the first floor of the tower and the inlaid wood ceiling mirrors the shape of the octagon structure of the tower. Each room is spacious and lit by chandeliers of crystal and brass. The side porch, which has an Eden-like view of the garden is screened in. In the south, this is commonly called a “mosquito porch”. There was a “coach porch”, which is a porch that was tall enough that a horse driven coach could pass through, that was destroyed by Hurricane Betsy in 1965 and never rebuilt.
The first Shaffer to migrate to Terrebonne Parish was William Alexander Shaffer, John Dalton's grandfather. William came to Louisiana from Camden County, South Caroline in 1828. He moved to Terrebonne Parish and built Crescent Farm Plantation just three miles south of Ardoyne Plantation. Crescent Farm Plantation is still in existence today and house the office of local attorneys St. Martin and Bourque.
After the Civil War, William Alexander's son, John Jackson Shaffer, purchased another sugar cane plantation for himself in 1874, also on Highway 311. Magnolia Plantation was built in 1858 and is only three miles south of Schriever. Magnolia Plantation is one of six surviving Greek Revival style plantation homes in Terrebonne Parish and is currently a private residence. It is located five miles north of Ardoyne and was used as a Union hospital during the Civil War. It is still in the Shaffer family and a portion of the film, 12 Years A Slave was filmed there.
Milhado Lee Shaffer married Margaret Krumbhaar, whom had grown up on the Krumbhaar Plantation, which united the two sugar families. The Krumbhaar family, through Margaret's Grandfather, William J. Minor built the famous Southdown Plantation. This plantation home is also on Highway 311 only a few miles from Downtown Houma, Louisiana, about seven miles from Ardoyne. Today it serves as a museum of local history and gathering place for many outings, music and craft events. Margaret Krumbhaar can also trace her family lineage back to Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis maternal granddaughter of Martha Washington, the wife of President George Washington.
Ardoyne Plantation has been in the Shaffer family for six generations. It is currently owned by Lee and Susan Shaffer. Lee is a retired military veteran. They currently reside on the second floor of the house. They moved into the house after the passing of Lee's grandmother, Margaret Krumbhaar Shaffer in 2007 at the age of ninety-three. The home is open for tours most every week from Tuesday through Saturday with tours at 9:30 AM, 11:30 AM, and 2:00 PM with no appointments necessary. Each room is a mini museum of fine furniture, paintings and other family and era specific heirlooms from the family's past. Visitors can see Louisiana cypress knee dolls, 300+ antique travel spoons, plantation workers’ pay tokens, antique quilts and needlework, Newcomb pottery, over two-thousand books, wood carvings, and many other sights original to the plantation. It has also been used as a set location for several motion pictures and television shows. There are also about three hundred and fifty acres of active sugar cane farming still taking place on the property.
Terrebonne Parish is a parish located in the southern part of the U.S. state of Louisiana. At the 2020 census, the population was 109,580. The parish seat is Houma. The parish was founded in 1822. Terrebonne Parish is part of the Houma-Thibodaux metropolitan statistical area.
Lafourche Parish is a parish located in the south of the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Thibodaux. The parish was formed in 1807. It was originally the northern part of Lafourche Interior Parish, which consisted of the present parishes of Lafourche and Terrebonne. Lafourche Parish was named after the Bayou Lafourche. City buildings have been featured in television and movies, such as in Fletch Lives, due to its architecture and rich history. At the 2020 census, its population was 97,557.
Houma is the largest city in and the parish seat of Terrebonne Parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is also the largest principal city of the Houma–Bayou Cane–Thibodaux metropolitan statistical area. The city's government was absorbed by the parish in 1984, which currently operates as the Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government.
Montegut is a census-designated place (CDP) in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 1,540 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Houma–Bayou Cane–Thibodaux metropolitan statistical area. Montegut was the primary filming location for the 2012 film Beasts of the Southern Wild.
Schriever is a census-designated place (CDP) in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 6,711 in 2020. It is part of the Houma–Bayou Cane–Thibodaux metropolitan statistical area.
Louisiana Highway 24 (LA 24) is a state highway located in southeastern Louisiana. It runs 35.65 miles (57.37 km) in a general east–west direction from LA 20 in Schriever to LA 3235 in Larose.
The Anderson–Shaffer House is a historic residence in the city of Hamilton, Ohio, United States. Constructed in the middle of the nineteenth century, it was home to a succession of owners in its early years, and it has been named a historic site.
Cocodrie is an unincorporated fishing, shrimping and crabbing village in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, United States, 10 miles south of Chauvin and due south of the city of Houma. It is part of the Houma–Bayou Cane–Thibodaux Metropolitan Statistical Area. The settlement is known for being very near the landfall location for Tropical Storm Matthew on October 10, 2004, Hurricane Gustav on September 1, 2008, and Hurricane Zeta on October 28, 2020.
Longwood is a plantation located at 15417 River Road in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, which was listed on National Register of Historic Places in 1983. Directly across the street is a levee holding back the Mississippi River.
Louisiana Highway 55 (LA 55) is a state highway located in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. It runs 14.09 miles (22.68 km) in a north–south direction from a dead end south of Montegut to a junction with LA 24 in Klondyke.
The Houmas, also known as Burnside Plantation and currently known as Houmas House Plantation and Gardens, is a historic plantation complex and house museum in Burnside, Louisiana. The plantation was established in the late 1700s, with the current main house completed in 1840. It was named after the native Houma people, who originally occupied this area of Louisiana.
Southdown Plantation is a historic Southern plantation in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana.
Magnolia Plantation, built in 1858, is a private residence located on Louisiana Highway 311, west of New Orleans and 3 miles (5 km) south of Schriever, Louisiana. The plantation was built to cultivate sugarcane, which was a critical part of Terrebonne Parish's antebellum economy. The plantation house is one of six surviving Greek Revival plantation houses in the parish. A portion of the film 12 Years a Slave was filmed at the plantation. On April 15, 2016, a paranormal investigation aired on the Travel Channel on the show Ghost Brothers featuring the Magnolia Plantation.
The Polmer Store, built c. 1880, is a well-preserved example of the once-common plantation store, a type of company store used after slavery ended. The one-story frame structure in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.
Fairymead House is a heritage-listed homestead at Thornhill Street, Bundaberg North, Bundaberg Region, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by John Shedden Adam and built in 1890. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 22 February 2002.
The Acadia Plantation was a historic plantation house in Thibodaux, Louisiana, U.S.. It was the plantation of James Bowie, Rezin P. Bowie, and Stephen Bowie. James "Jim" Bowie, served in the Battle of the Alamo. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 29, 1987. It was demolished in 2010.
The Orange Grove Plantation House is a historic house on a former plantation in Terrebonne Parish, about eight miles away from Houma, Louisiana. It was built in 1850 for John C. Beatty, a sugar planter who owned slaves. The plantation spanned 2,470 acres of land when it was sold at auction shortly after Beatty's death in 1857. Beatty's slaves were sold with the property.
Robert Ruffin Barrow was one of the largest landowners and slave owner in the south before the American Civil War. He owned sixteen plantations, mostly in Louisiana, and had large landholdings in Texas. He also invested money in projects in which he saw potential. The most well known investment he made was in the early submarine projects of his brother-in-law, Horace Hunley, for the Confederate States Navy.
Thomas A. Cage was a state legislator who served in the Louisiana State Senate during the Reconstruction era and the Louisiana House of Representatives and again the Louisiana State Senate post reconstruction.
Ardoyne, its Scottish name meaning "little knoll," is a fairytale castle built buy an indulgent husband for his wife who requested a cottage be built for her while she traveled abroad for her health.
Built by John Dalton Shaffer for his wife Julia, Ardoyne was constructed in 1897.
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