Parlange Plantation House | |
Nearest city | Mix, Louisiana |
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Coordinates | 30°37′49″N91°29′15″W / 30.63036°N 91.48763°W |
Built | c. 1750 (disputed) |
Architectural style | French Colonial |
NRHP reference No. | 70000258 [1] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | April 15, 1970 |
Designated NHL | May 30, 1974 [2] |
The Parlange Plantation House (French : Plantation Parlange) is a historic plantation house at Louisiana Highway 1 and Louisiana Highway 78 in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. The plantation is a classic example of a large French Colonial plantation house in the United States. Its construction date is disputed. Oral history indicates a date of c. 1750 for both establishment of the plantation and construction of the house. Scholarly works accept the establishment date only, having found strong evidence for a construction date from 1830-1840. [3] [4]
The home exemplifies the style of the semi-tropical Louisiana river country house, the Parlange Plantation home is a two-story raised cottage. The main floor is set on a brick basement with brick pillars to support the veranda of the second story. The raised basement is of brick, manufactured by enslaved people on the plantation. The walls, both inside and out, were plastered with a native mixture of mud, sand, Spanish moss and animal hair (bousillage), then painted. The ground story and second floors contain seven service rooms, arranged in a double line. The walls and ceiling throughout the house were constructed of close-fitting bald cypress planks.
There is an octagonal pigeonnier near the house. The home was once surrounded by a formal garden, but the garden was destroyed during the Civil War and never rebuilt.
Vincent de Ternant, known as the Marquis of Dansville-sur-Meuse, received the plantation grounds in a French land grant and developed the 10,000 acres (40 km2) into an active plantation facing False River. When de Ternant's son Claude inherited the plantation, he changed the cash crop from indigo to sugarcane and cotton.
When Claude de Ternant died, his second wife Virginie remarried. (By her first husband, Virginie was the maternal grandmother of Parisian socialite Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, who was the subject of John Singer Sargent's portrait "Madame X".) Virginie's second husband, another Frenchman, was Colonel Charles Parlange, from whom the plantation took its name.
During the American Civil War, Parlange alternatively served as Union headquarters for General Nathaniel Banks and Confederate headquarters for General Richard Taylor.
Colonel and Mrs. Parlange had one son, also named Charles, who survived the Civil War to begin a distinguished career as a State Senator, United States District Attorney, Lieutenant Governor, federal judge, and finally justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court.
After Virginie Parlange died in 1887, her son and his wife moved to New Orleans. Judge and Mrs. Charles Parlange leased the plantation to tenants for the next twenty years, until their son Walter Parlange returned to Pointe Coupée Parish to take up the life of a plantation farmer.
Today Parlange retains 1500 acres (6 km2), which are still used as a cattle and sugarcane plantation. It is owned and operated by descendants of the original owners. The plantation house remains largely intact and is occasionally available for private tours by appointment only. It is located near the intersection of Louisiana Highway 1 and Louisiana Highway 78.
The Parlange Plantation and the history of Virginie de Ternant was the inspiration for the Bagatelle Plantation and the heroine Virginie Tregan in the novel Louisiane by Maurice Denuzière. [5]
Pointe Coupee Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 20,758. The parish seat is New Roads.
Morganza is an incorporated village near the Mississippi River in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 610 at the 2010 census, down from 659 in 2000. As of 2020 the population was 525. It is part of the Baton Rouge metropolitan statistical area. The village's zip code is 70759. The Morganza Spillway, a flood control structure between the Mississippi River and the Atchafalaya Basin, is located nearby.
Lakeland, is a village in southeastern Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana United States. The area is home to several plantation houses such as Alma and Poydras Plantations.
Riverlake is a plantation and an antebellum mansion, located on the west bank of the False River in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, about 8 miles (13 km) south of New Roads, Louisiana.
Laura Plantation is a restored historic Louisiana Creole plantation on the west bank of the Mississippi River near Vacherie, Louisiana, (U.S.), open for guided tours. Formerly known as Duparc Plantation, it is significant for its early 19th-century Créole-style raised big house and several surviving outbuildings, including two slave cabins. It is one of only 15 plantation complexes in Louisiana with this many complete structures. Because of its historical importance, the plantation is on the National Register of Historic Places. The site, in St. James Parish, Louisiana, is also included on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.
Louisiana Highway 78 (LA 78) is a state highway located in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. It runs 7.55 miles (12.15 km) in a north–south direction from a junction with U.S. Highway 190 (US 190) and LA 411 in Livonia to LA 1 in Parlange.
The Magnolia Mound Plantation House is a French Creole house constructed in 1791 near the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Many period documents refer to the plantation as Mount Magnolia. The house and several original outbuildings on the grounds of Magnolia Mound Plantation are examples of the vernacular architectural influences of early settlers from France and the West Indies. The complex is owned by the city of Baton Rouge and maintained by its Recreation Commission (BREC). It is located approximately one mile south of downtown.
Homeplace Plantation House, also known as Keller Homestead, is a National Historic Landmark on Louisiana Highway 18 in Hahnville, St. Charles Parish, Louisiana. Built 1787–91, it is one of the nation's finest examples of a French colonial raised cottage. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970 for its architecture. It is private property, and is not open to the public.
Mix is an unincorporated community in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, United States. It is the home of the Parlange Plantation House, a National Historic Landmark and the Mix Store and Post Office, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is located along Louisiana Highway 1, south of New Roads.
San Francisco Plantation House is a historic plantation house in Reserve, St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana. Built in 1853–1856, it is one of the most architecturally distinctive plantation houses in the American South. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1974. It is now a museum and event facility.
Parlange was the name of a community located in southern Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, United States. The community was along Louisiana Highway 1, on the banks of False River.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana.
Charles Parlange was a Louisiana state senator, United States Attorney, Louisiana Lieutenant Governor serving under Governor Murphy J. Foster, Associate Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court, and United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
White Hall Plantation House is an 1840s Italianate and Greek Revival plantation house attributed to the architect Henry Howard and built in 1848-49 by Elias Norwood. It is located in Legonier, a hamlet on the east bank of the Atchafalaya River, today part of the unincorporated town of Lettsworth, Louisiana. White Hall's most notable owner and slaveholder was Bennet Barton Simmes, founder of Simmesport, state senator, and contributor to the Louisiana Articles of Secession prior to the Civil War. He is also said to have been a steamboat captain and Confederate general. The home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Pleasant View Plantation House is located in Oscar, Louisiana. It was built around 1820 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 5, 1984.
Marie Virginie de Ternant, née Trahan, was the owner and manager of the Parlange Plantation, near New Roads, Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. It was through her strong personality, diplomacy and charm that she saved the house from destruction throughout its occupation by both the Union and Confederate armies during the American Civil War.
Brian James Costello is an American historian, author, archivist and humanitarian. He is an 11th generation resident of New Roads, Louisiana, seat of Pointe Coupee Parish. He is three-quarters French and one-quarter Italian in ancestry.
The Valverda Plantation is a Southern plantation with a historic mansion located in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, just outside of Maringouin in neighboring Iberville Parish. It was designed in the Greek Revival architectural style, and completed in 1850. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since April 1, 2002.
The Jean Baptiste Bergeron House in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana was built in c.1840. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.
This article incorporates public domain material from Parlange Plantation House. National Park Service.