Belle Grove Plantation: Attempts to Preserve

a Doomed American Landmark

Jonathan Sargent ARHA364 J. Siry May 15, 2009

1

In 1948, Clarence John Laughlin’s images of Belle Grove plantation appeared in

his book, Ghosts Along the Mississippi; timeless photographs of a porticoed mansion

battered under the effects of time and the harsh Louisiana climate. As “the greatest

ruined house in the entire Mississippi valley,” the plantation stood as a doomed entity

“haunted by misfortune” yet tragically beautiful. Through his nine images of the

building, Laughlin presented to the world a marvel of the Old South desperately in need

of help [Fig. 1]. It was certainly not the first time attention had been drawn to the site but

it would be one of the last since the effects of nature and fire would turn the building into

a mere pile of bricks within four years of the book’s publication.

Frequently, Belle Grove has served as a symbol of the post-war South, a remnant

of a past and distant culture. However, the building more accurately tells the story of

economic collapse and a nation’s undying pursuit of progress instead of preservation.

The collapse of the Louisiana sugar industry in the 1920’s sent the house into a period of

neglect in turn exposing structural flaws in the building that led to its steady

deterioration. Despite the rise of the preservation movement in America, the house’s

impractically large size, its precarious location near the river, and the inability to gain

funding or public support during a period marred by economic struggles and world wars

doomed the building.

The hulking mass of Belle Grove provides an intriguing glance into the

extravagant lifestyle of the sugar plantation owners who composed one of the most elite

communities in America prior to the Civil War. The mansion, positioned on a plantation

of seven thousand acres at is peak, was home to the family of John Andrews who had

made a fortune in Virginia and moved to Louisiana to try his hand in the sugar cane

2

industry. Andrews curiously commissioned Henry Howard, a relatively young and

inexperienced architect working out of New Orleans to construct the seventy five room

house in 1857.1 Composed primarily of elements in the Greek Revival style, a style

popular in Louisiana and across the entire South at this time, the house also utilized

Gothic and Italianate elements to create a truly unique design. The two story structure

was mounted atop high foundations with two huge colonnades along two sides of the

main block and two additional wings extending out from the central rectangular block

[Fig. 2]. The structure’s asymmetrical layout works to provide the illusion that the

building is even more immense than it truly is since it dominates one’s view both

vertically and horizontally.

Andrews was clearly not satisfied with building himself a mansion; he wanted his

to be a display of wealth and technology unparalleled in the United States. Atop the

thirty foot columns on the exterior were capitals consisting of six foot blocks of

intricately carved cypress wood, the size of which was unprecedented in Louisiana.2

Descriptions and photos of the home’s interior further reveal why the house was

constructed at the astronomical cost of seventy-five thousand dollars. Twelve onyx

mantels imported from Europe were installed in the house along with silver keyhole

guards and doorknobs in each room, and elaborate plasterwork carried out by expert

European craftsmen.3 For dining purposes, there was a great dumbwaiter in the house

which some believed to be one of, if not the largest, in the South.4 However, the

crowning technological accomplishment of the design was what has been said to have

been the first bathtub in the South, made possible by two water cisterns in the attic

capable of capturing up to ten thousand gallons of rainwater.5

3

The house’s splendor soon made it a renowned location for lavish parties and the

courting of Andrews’ five daughters, although this all came to a halt upon the outbreak of

the Civil War. Following the war, the financially-pressed Andrews was forced to sell the

house to Henry Ware in 1868 along with 1809 adjoining acres of plantation land.6 Like

Andrews, the Wares shared a great affinity for entertainment and life in the spotlight.

The house became an entertainment landmark and a symbol for the recovering South as it

slowly stepped out of Reconstruction into a period of growing prosperity. Two

racetracks and accompanying stables were built on the property and a collection of

furnishings later estimated at five hundred thousand dollars was accumulated at the

house.7 The home remained in the Wares’ possession until 1925 when they too were

forced to sell the property under financial stress.

Despite its lavish beginnings, Belle Grove has become better known for its

twentieth century identity, as a site that progressed steadily into ruin. By 1908, this

process had already begun with the race tracks, stables, and possibly even the sugar

refineries having ceased operation [Fig. 3].8 The plantation continued to produce sugar

and it is unclear whether sugar was sent to other plantations in order to be refined or

whether there was a refinery on the site that continued to be operated. The greatest

deterioration at the site occurred after the house was sold in 1925, after which point

nobody resided there. In fact, the Wares had abandoned the home in 1924 a year prior to

selling it since they simply could not afford for its upkeep. A 1927 description of the

structure mentions that there was much damage in the upstairs due to leaks in the ceiling.

The intricate plasterwork had fallen in many places, the woodwork was battered and

discolored and bottles lay on the floor of the home indicating its use by trespassers.9

4

Although the hope of restoration was sparked in the 1930’s by the site’s change in

ownership, the plantation continued to deteriorate. The effects of nature began to become

too much for the structure to handle for as one author noted “while the soft air of the

Deep South builds quickly, it quickly destroys.”10 By 1936, large portions of the roof had

fallen in allowing massive amounts of moisture to penetrate the structure. The great

mahogany spiral staircase, once lauded for its beautiful contours, had been destroyed and

many of the windows shattered.11 Within a year, all of the doors, balustrades and

windows had been removed by greedy looters and poor neighbors in search of materials.

It was reported that already the elements were beginning to compromise the structure of

the building, with some of the rafters sagging under the weight of the collapsed slate

roof.12 Within a few years, the entire wing in which the spiral staircase was located

collapsed. Belle Grove, “grandiose even in its wreckage,” began to take on a new

persona as the romanticized ruin that would characterize it for its remaining years.13

Throughout the 1940’s, the structure began to draw more and more attention with

many sources comparing it to the ancient ruins of Rome. By 1945, only seventeen acres

remained of the once noble plantation and animals grazed in and around the gaping mass

of the house. It had become “as much a wreck as it was the perfection of colonial

construction” in its earlier days.14 On March 15, 1952 the structure once known as the

grandest house in all of the United States was consumed by flames and reunited “with the

ghosts of the past.”15 Since the house had been in such a neglected state before the fire

and since ninety percent of the house was made of brick, the blaze did not actually

drastically change the appearance of the ruined mansion. However, the fire did consume

the rafters, the frontal pediment and all of the remaining plaster leaving the remaining

5

brick structure dangerous and subject to collapse.16 The burned remains of the building

were bought in 1955 and razed in order to make way for a housing development that now

stands where the mansion once loomed. The only remnants of the site that exist are a few

great oak trees that once surrounded the house.

Belle Grove’s condition prior to the fire was a direct reflection of the deteriorating

economic state of Louisiana as a whole. Formerly one of the richest states in the Union

prior to the Civil War, Louisiana subsequently became the poorest.17 Sugar production

had represented the most profitable industry in antebellum Louisiana and had relied

entirely upon a large amount of slave labor. Following the war, Belle Grove and the

other mansions located along the stretch of the Mississippi River known as “the River

Road” crumbled under the financial demands of employing a paid work force.

Following the post-war struggles of Reconstruction, sugar plantations did manage

to rebound, reaching record production numbers by 1904. However, this period of

prosperity was short-lived. The following period from 1906 to 1926 became known as the

“Great Decline” due to huge decreases in sugar production that devastated the Louisiana

economy. In 1912, heavy freezes and damaging floods lead to a disastrous crop. In

addition, several diseases that attacked sugar cane appeared and quickly spread

throughout the unhealthy crops within the next few years.18 Desperate planters continued

to plant diseased cane which only precipitated the problem.19 Some plantations resorted

to importing and refining Cuban and Mexican sugar, operating as mere refineries rather

than producers.

The difficult economic conditions forced planters to make decisions that yielded

greater short term gains but which also continued the downward spiral in terms of

6

production. For instance, funding previously devoted to strategies such as crop rotation,

fertilization and drainage infrastructure were cut. Obviously, this led to further problems

in the coming years as soils became depleted and overused. As a result, the plantation

system witnessed a process of consolidation throughout this time period as smaller

plantations were gradually bought up and reorganized into larger plantations. In the first

quarter of the twentieth century, the number of operating sugar cane plantations went

from three hundred to fifty four.20

During this period of struggle, the planter’s were presented with a little hope with

the outbreak of World War I. One might think that the sugar demands brought about by

the war would have led to greatly increased production and thus provided wealth for the

plantation owners and their homes. However, the various factors that had depleted cane

production in years prior prevented any vast growth to occur in the industry. In addition,

the plantations struggled to find workers as more and more Black workers migrated to the

cities, having been drawn by the prospect of higher paying industrial jobs to fuel the war

effort.21 The end result of these factors was the bankruptcy and sale of many plantation

homes such as Belle Grove in the 1920’s. Much of this was occurring even prior to the

national economic downturn of the Great Depression, which further worsened conditions.

Belle Grove relied solely on the money made through the sugar cane industry for

its upkeep. Several sources attest to the fact that the cane crops failed completely in

1924, at which point the Wares abandoned the house.22 Storms, droughts, and the mosaic

disease which attacked the cane have all been attributed to participating in the crop

failure at the site.23 Based upon the accounts of the house’s greatly deteriorated state as

early as 1927, it is evident that necessary repairs may not have been carried out for the

7

last few decades that the Wares owned the plantation. The period of the house’s apparent

neglect coincides with the near collapse of the Louisiana sugar cane industry.

Integrally connected to agriculture was the Mississippi River and plantations’

access to it as a means of transporting goods. From the advent of the steamboat era on

the Mississippi in 1812 up through the peak of the era in the 1870’s, greater access to the

river allowed for greater publicity, greater access, and thus greater opportunities for

business.24 This began to change as railroads and trucks began to replace steamboats as

the primary source for transporting goods. Plantations located along the River Road such

as Belle Grove no longer held such a great advantage over the larger consolidated

plantations which could be established away from the riverfront. Furthermore, the

decrease in steamboat traffic led to decreased exposure among people who would have

witnessed Belle Grove’s steady deterioration.

As Louisiana agriculture fell into decline, new industries developed that further

threatened the existence of Louisiana plantations and their grand homes. The discovery

of oil in southwestern Louisiana in 1901 revealed one of the largest oil fields in the

United States, positioned under Louisiana and eastern Texas.25 Throughout the area of

the River Road, refineries were needed to process the petroleum being extracted from the

nearby oil wells. Naturally, the Mississippi River stood out as an ideal location for these

refineries since oil could easily then be transported down its waters to New Orleans and

beyond, just as planters had traditionally transported sugar and other agricultural

products. The first step towards the development of an oil industry in the region was

taken by Standard Oil, now ExxonMobil, which opened one of the world’s largest oil

refineries in Baton Rouge in 1909, roughly thirty five miles upstream from Belle Grove.26

8

The outbreak of World War I may not have fostered too much success in the

sugar cane industry but it did greatly promote the petroleum industry. It was not until

later; however, during the 1920’s that companies began to capitalize on the relatively new

field of petrochemicals. These chemicals are made from the waste generated in the

petroleum refining process and are found in such modern materials as rubber, plastic,

film and fiberglass as well as countless other synthetics. The area between Baton Rouge

and New Orleans continuously attracted petrochemical companies seeking to utilize the

readily available oil, natural gas, salt and sulfur in the area. Within several decades, the

region had developed into the so-called “Chemical Corridor” as the largest petrochemical

complex in the world.27

Old plantation land along the riverfront was commonly bought up and developed

to accommodate these petrochemical plants leading occasionally to the demolition of

plantation homes such as at Welham plantation. Although two petrochemical complexes

are now located within four miles of Belle Grove’s site, it is fairly clear that such

industrial development did not threaten the mansion.28 The plantation was always under

private ownership and was never sold to any oil companies.

Yet another threat to consider toward Louisiana plantations during the mid 1900’s

was that of housing development as developers capitalized on cheap plantation lands no

longer under agricultural use. Since Belle Grove’s site was ultimately developed into a

subdivision four years after the house was consumed by fire, this threat may be conceived

as a possibility upon first observation. However, little growth or development was going

on in the town of White Castle, Louisiana where Belle Grove was located. The

population of Iberville Parish to which White Castle belongs actually decreased from

9

1920 and 1930 and again between 1940 and 1950, and the town itself has a population of

less than two thousand even today.29 Furthermore, aerial photographs of the town today

reveal that revived agricultural land still dominates the riverfront and the housing

development on Belle Grove’s site is actually an isolated occurrence.30

Provided that Belle Grove was not presented with threats of commercial and

industrial development, the question arises of why the building was allowed to progress

so far into ruin. In other words, which obstacles still existed that inhibited the

preservation of the house? In speaking of the idea of “preservation” during the early

years of Belle Grove’s decline, it is first important to note that the motives behind

preservation and its process in general were much different than they are today. The

conception of preserving a site in order to protect a component of a region, culture or

nation’s history was somewhat foreign. The process was much more about restoration

than preservation; to restore homes to their previous grandeur so that they might continue

to function as they had in the past.

Regardless of the motives behind the restorations of plantation homes, a

newfound interest in restoring them appeared in the 1920’s and 1930’s around the same

time that Belle Grove was abandoned. As countless Louisiana plantation homes lay

abandoned and in extreme disrepair, a man named Andrew Stewart and his wife,

Josephine, purchased the Oak Alley plantation in 1925 and conducted a full restoration.31

Their efforts were some of the first in the region towards this goal and many

contemporary authors were quick to laud them for providing a model for preservation

that quickly spread. Although the condition of plantation homes often depended

primarily on the economic success of their respective plantations, as was the case at Belle

10

Grove, some wealthy owners such as the Stewarts were able to restore the buildings

independent of any agricultural success. Several other individuals followed this pattern

and carried on the trend of preservation on into the 1930’s and 1940’s. Oftentimes

former sugar plantations were transformed into retreats for the elite, leading some

historians such as Richard Sexton to call the period of the late 1930’s “the rehabilitated

country estate era.”32

Prior to the preservation of Oak Alley, the majority of plantation homes that

remained in decent shape were homes that had been kept up by descendants of their

original owners. Not only did these owners have strong incentives to preserve their

family heritage but they also benefited from the support of the communities to which

their families belonged; connections which in some cases went back centuries in time. In

speaking of a similar situation in Charleston, South Carolina, historian Robert Weyeneth

summed up the idea of preserving a community’s identity when he said, “the first

stirrings of the preservation impulse were stimulated by the destruction—or threatened

destruction—of landmark buildings, structures closely linked with community history

whose presence on the cityscape often fostered a sense of civic identity for residents.”33

At places such as the plantation house named Shadows-on-the-Teche, this was exactly

the case, where not only the building but the family associated with it was seen as an

integral part of the civic identity.

The preservation trend among Louisiana plantation homes was part of a national

push to preserve parts of the nation’s history which were rapidly disappearing in the

name of progress. Much of the impetus towards preservation derived from national

programs such as the Historic American Buildings Survey or HABS, which was formed

11

as part of the New Deal’s job creation program in 1933. Richard Koch, the architect who

performed the restoration of Oak Alley, was very active with HABS, helping to produce

measured drawings and photographs of historic sites and serving as head of its

Louisiana’s division [Fig. 4].34 Although the survey had no power to fund restorations or

actively promote them, it was instrumental in providing greater publicity for the

structures by recording the houses’ details. As Koch carried out valuable preservation

projects in Louisiana, other individuals and organizations worked towards preserving

landmarks elsewhere in the U.S. The first historic preservation ordinance was put into

place in Charleston, South Carolina in 1931 with New Orleans serving as the next U.S.

site to follow suit.35 Later, in 1947, the first historic preservation conference was held in

Washington D.C. which led to the formation of the National Trust for Historic

Preservation and the National Council for Historic Sites and Buildings in 1949.36

As national interest in preservation grew and as images of dilapidated and

seemingly forgotten Louisiana plantation homes continued to emerge, several attempts

were made to save the Belle Grove mansion. In fact, nearly every owner after the Wares

shared similar ambitions of restoring the property. A 1927 study of Louisiana plantation

architecture recalls that Belle Grove had been recently purchased with the “promise of its

restoration.”37 The new owner, John Wheeler may well have had such intentions to

restore the grand mansion but apparently lacked the resources to do so under the difficult

economic climate surrounding the Great Depression. The following owner N.G. Huth

also considered renovations and went as far as getting an estimate as to how much the

restorations would cost.38 The hundred thousand dollar cost must have again proved too

great a financial burden. In 1943, Frederick Nehrbass also had plans for restorations after

12

purchasing the house and its accompanying sixteen acres for two thousand dollars.39

However, Nehrbass failed to take any action before the building finally went up in flames

in 1952.

Individual owners were not the only ones who showed interest in reviving Belle

Grove. The State Planning Commission was in negotiations to obtain the site in 1940;

however, the outbreak of World War II prevented the commission from supplying the

needed funds to gain the site and it was not pursued further.40 In addition, some

publications which revealed visual and textual descriptions of the decaying mansion

helped generate publicity and interest in the site. John and William Wickes, two

landscape architects from Michigan, claimed that they had purchased Belle Grove after

having seen its picture in a 1939 article in House and Garden.41 In that same year, the

publication, Louisiana Conservation Review, published a unique article among the

literature on Belle Grove that called for readers to take action to save the plantation.

The article in Louisiana Conservation Review presents an interesting proposition

not found in other literature on Belle Grove: the idea that the site could be made into a

park that would serve as a recreational tourist site. The article envisioned a house which

would hold a vast library and serve as “a dream house this time for writers, artists and

composers….” while the grounds would be reserved for recreational activity.42 The idea

of reusing the structure for a purpose other than a private country residence or as a

traditional center of a sugar plantation was a very promising one and one which had been

entertained at a few sites in Louisiana already. Magnolia plantation was maintained and

used as a supper club, religious retreat and a training school for mentally challenged

13

children.43 In another instance, the Destrehan plantation house was utilized as a school

for blacks and for other uses by the oil company that later owned the site.44

Even in Belle Grove’s later years when its structural flaws seemed to undermine

its ability to ever function again as a livable house, possibilities existed for the site’s re-

use. Given the site’s high amount of lure and intrigue as a ruin, the house held incredible

potential to attract visitors had there been a way to preserve it in its ruinous state.

Preserved ruins have proven to be successful tourist sites at such locations as Port

Gibson, Mississippi in which twenty-nine columns, balustrades and foundations are all

that remain of the former Windsor plantation house overlooking the Mississippi River.

At another site, the Seven Oaks Plantation, a similar “ruins park” was proposed in which

a ruined plantation home would have been stabilized in order to serve as the central

element of a park just outside of New Orleans.45 Although this proposal was made more

than two decades after Belle Grove had disappeared, it provides a very interesting idea in

hindsight that perhaps could have been carried to fruition at Belle Grove.

Knowing the possibilities that may have existed to revive the Belle Grove site, it

is clear that the primary obstacle preventing any action from taking place was insufficient

funding. Unfortunately, the period of peaked public interest in the site coincided with the

outbreak of World War II. During the war, it was nearly impossible to find the labor or

materials needed to restore the building due to the national push to channel all resources

towards the war effort. There was also little hope in reviving the sugar industry since

black workers which had made up the majority of field hands were steadily moving to

cities drawn by the prospect of higher paying industrial jobs. In addition, the industrial

war boom changed the nation’s landscape and the priorities of the American people as

14

increased industrialization prompted by the war continued to be of foremost importance

in the post-war society.

With sugar operations at Belle Grove having failed, an alternative source of

funding was needed for a restoration project. Since nobody wealthy enough to repair the

building ever came forward, the answer may have lay in somewhat revolutionary

thinking such as the Conservation Review’s suggestion of the site’s development as a

recreational park. Ironically, the oil companies that were bulldozing some of the

plantation houses on the River Road could possibly have provided a means of survival for

Belle Grove. Local organizations or the individual owners of Belle Grove may have been

able to strike a deal with an oil company in which the lands could have been leased or

sold in exchange for a partial restoration of the building. Such a situation occurred at the

San Francisco plantation in the 1970’s when the house was acquired by the Marathon Oil

Company under the agreement that they would restore and maintain the main building.46

Alternatively, Belle Grove could have also functioned as a company’s administrative

building as was the case briefly in the case of Destrehan plantation.

Belle Grove’s position in the small town of White Castle may have also hurt its

case for survival. As a small rural town based around agriculture, land values were cheap

especially following the struggles of the sugar industry. Thus, the sale of lands to oil

companies or other buyers could not provide enough capital to pay for the restorations of

the house. The town’s small population and somewhat isolated position as compared to

the major city of New Orleans meant that Belle Grove also received limited exposure and

lacked a strong base of supporters who could rally for its preservation. Such conditions

create doubts of whether the house would have been able to generate enough revenue to

15

sustain itself in the event that it had become a tourist attraction. After all, a large portion

of the cost would have to have been devoted to maintaining the house once it was initially

repaired. Most of the cost estimates that were conducted over the years consisted only of

restoration costs but the costs for upkeep must also be considered.

The reason Belle Grove’s upkeep would have been so costly was due to its

impractically immense size that may have deterred many potential buyers and restorers.

A historian in 1941 commented that nobody had resided in the house since 1925 because

“no one could feel at home in this big house.”47 In his 1934 article entitled “Vanished

Paradise,” Lyle Saxon also commented on the fact that the house’s seventy five rooms

were basically unmanageable without a number of servants working to maintain them.

From Saxon’s viewpoint, the antebellum mansion was a form that was inappropriate and

impractical; a remnant of a very distant past.

Several authors have pointed to the fact that the building also lacked the structural

support needed for a building of its size. This was made immediately visible in the ruins

where large cracks and holes in the foundations appeared, as shown in photographs

dating to the 1930’s. Questions remain of whether these cracks were caused by the house

settling, design failures in the foundations themselves or more likely a combination of

these two factors. The fact that an entire wing of the house collapsed within ten years of

the building’s abandonment speaks to the gravity of these issues. In his dissertation,

Robert Rudd hypothesizes that the building may have had fatal design flaws in its

structure that may have doomed the building regardless of whether the funding was

available for its later restoration. Other writers speak of similar flaws, claiming Belle

Grove was an early step in its architect’s development evidenced by the increased success

16

of his later design at Nottoway plantation which does not exhibit the same structural

inadequacies.48

In times when the flow of the Mississippi River remained unpredictable and a

constant danger for the homes and farms near its banks, Belle Grove’s close location to

the river’s banks may have been a further deterrent for those looking to restore it. Over

the course of time that the Wares owned the property, the distance between the river and

the house decreased from a quarter mile to a hundred yards.49 As the river continued to

eat away at the earth supporting the house, fears were fueled by the great flood of 1927

which affected much of the sugar cane country. The impacts of this flood and the later

New Deal led to increasing federal control over levee setbacks.50 In 1941, many oak

trees in front of the house were removed during one of several levee setbacks. Such

setbacks had forced the demolition of other plantation house complexes such as Uncle

Sam Plantation in 1940.51

In much of the literature involving the river’s threat to the house, the river is

portrayed as an unstoppable force which would inevitably consume the house one day.

The last resident at Belle Grove, Stone Ware, said “Maybe it would be the proper way for

it to go, that way….If they would only let the river take it one day, pillars and

everything.”52 It is very likely that such individuals saw the river as an easy solution for

the removal of the house, without having to watch the painful decay of the building and

the paralleled disappearance of the culture it embodied. Such comments which

dramatized the threat of the river may have worked against Belle Grove’s chances for

preservation in implying that Belle Grove was not worth attempting to save since it was

doomed by the forces of nature.

17

Many of the same individuals that called for the river to take Belle Grove viewed

the mansion as a symbol of a grand past. From their viewpoint, a full restoration of a

house like Belle Grove also would require a restoration of the landscape and lifestyle that

was associated with the original building in order to be considered complete. In a land

that was dramatically and irrevocably altered by the effects of the Civil War, this goal

could clearly never be achieved. Many of these individuals seemed to have believed in

allowing the building to die alongside the culture it represented. Although many people

may have looked to the era of the building’s early days with nostalgia during the 1930’s,

they likely also recognized that such structures were a bit out of place in contemporary

Louisiana society. In speaking of plantation homes in 1934, historian Lyle Saxon says,

“In twenty years they will all be gone…Their day is done.”53

A final obstacle to Belle Grove’s potential restoration was the lack of publicity

and support for the site that could have been provided by historical and preservation

societies. Although the preservation movement was gaining momentum in America

during the house’s lifetime, many organizations were just coming into being or yet to

come. The National Trust for Historic Preservation was only three years old when Belle

Grove burned down and it had only just begun to obtain and operate historical sites at the

time of the fire. Organizations closer in proximity such as the Louisiana Landmarks

Society, the Foundation for Historical Louisiana and the River Road Historical Society

were not founded until 1950, 1963 and 1972 respectively. With extremely few historical

publications out during the building’s lifetime (save for maybe the aforementioned

Louisiana Conservation Review), Belle Grove relied on newspaper articles and accounts

in periodicals for exposure. Besides the fact that many of these displayed the plantation

18

as a doomed romanticized ruin, they also lacked the political backing that a publication

by a preservation organization could provide.

The more recent story of the Seven Oaks Plantation illustrates how difficult the

preservation of a Louisiana plantation house can be even provided the support of such

organizations. At Seven Oaks, the Louisiana Landmarks Society combined with many

different preservationists and local organizations to battle the Missouri Pacific Railroad

in an attempt to preserve one of the oldest plantation houses in Louisiana [Fig. 5].54

Located just outside the city limits of New Orleans, the site held enormous potential for

tourist appeal which local officials failed to recognize. Years of lobbying led to an

installation of a temporary roof and plans for the stabilization of the ruins; however, a

lack of support eventually led the city to condemn the building and authorize its

demolition in 1976. Only recently has the nearby community expressed open regret over

the destruction of what would likely be its main attraction today.55

The story of Seven Oaks paints a grim picture and makes one doubt whether Belle

Grove was in fact “doomed” from the beginning as many people claimed. If

organizations so close to New Orleans were unable to save an historic building then

surely a home three times its size in a rural area had no chance at survival. Still, one has

to wonder how even minor restorations to Belle Grove could have prolonged its life. Had

it survived into the 1970’s and 1980’s when preservation societies became very active in

Louisiana and across the country, it may have been salvaged.

Perhaps, just as the lifestyle of the Old South faded from the landscape it was

appropriate for Belle Grove to disappear as well. After all, one characteristic that held

true throughout its lifetime was its removal from reality; a certain quality to the building

19

that led countless people to question whether the house was real. As one author said even

before it decayed into ruins, “There was in the atmosphere about it a vague something

difficult to convey in words – a splendid indifference to the affairs and the doings of the

rest of the world; a stately self-sufficiency; a grandiose aloofness.” It can also be seen as

only fitting that the house’s fate should be tied to the industry from which it owed its

origins. Wealth made from the crops of so-called “white gold” had allowed for the

construction of a house as big as any in the United States and later led it down a path of

neglect; wherein the images of its ruined walls would be permanently cemented in

American history. Unfortunately for Belle Grove, it disappeared before it could benefit

from the more current rise in preservation. However, perhaps the words of a former

resident of Oak Alley can be accurately applied also to Belle Grove in saying that “when

these pillars and trees have crumbled, as all things must crumble, the legend will be

stronger than the actuality.”56

20

1 Lane, Mills. Architecture of the Old South: Louisiana. New York: Abbeville Press, 1990, p. 92. 2Seebold, Herman be Bachelle. Old Louisiana Plantation Homes and Family Trees, Volume 1. New

Orleans: Pelican Press, 1941, p. 189. 3 Laughlin, Clarence John. Louisiana Plantation Houses. Magazine of Art, Oct. 1948, p. 213. 4 Walker, Ewing. “Fabulous Belle Grove.” Holland’s Magazine of the South, May 1939, p. 38. 5 Rogers, Bob. “Subdivision to Rise on Belle Grove Site.” State Times, May 30, 1958. 6 1868 Belle Grove Sale Document. 7 Kane, Harnett T. Plantation Parade: The Grand Manner in Louisiana. New York: William Morrow and

Co., 1945, p. 245. 8 Price, Charles. "Belle Grove--A History from the Progress in 1937." White Castle Times. March 21,

1952, p. 1. 9 Spratling, William P. and Natalie Scott. Old Plantation Houses in Louisiana. New Orleans: William Helburn Inc., 1927. 10 Walker, p. 38. 11 "Belle Grove, Called Finest of Old Homes, Doomed by Desertion." Morning Advocate. Sept. 20, 1936. Pg. 12. 12 Price, Charles W. "Belle Grove, a Decaying Relic of a Vanished Time: Louisiana Castle, Once State's

Finest, Is Now in Ruins." The Progress. August 20, 1937. pg 12. 13 "Belle Grove, Called Finest of Old Homes, Doomed by Desertion." Pg. 12. 14 Grace, Albert. Heart of the Sugar Bowl: The Story of Iberville. Baton Rouge: Franklin Press, 1946, p.

75. 15 Clement, William. Plantation Life Along the Mississippi. New Orleans: Pelican Publishing, 1952. 16 "Belle Grove Is Fire Victim." White Castle Times. March 21, 1952. Pg. 1. 17 Saxon, Lyle. Old Louisiana. New Orleans: Robert L. Crager and Co., 1950, p. 38. 18 Sitterson, J. Carlyle. Sugar Country: Cane Sugar Industry in the South, 1753-1950. Lexington, KY:

University of KY Press, 1953, p. 343. 19 Conrad, Glenn R. and Ray F. Lucas. White Gold: A Brief History of the Louisiana Sugar Industry, 1795-

1995. Lafayette, LA: University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1995, p. 66. 20 Butler, W. E. Down Among the Sugar Cane: The Story of Louisiana Sugar Plantations and Their

Railroads. Baton Rouge: Moran Publishing, 1980, p. 14. 21 Sanson, Jerry Purvis. Louisiana during World War II : Politics and Society, 1939-1945. Baton Rouge:

Louisiana State University Press, 1999, p. 199. 22 Lynn, Stuart. New Orleans. New York: Hastings House, 1949. 23 Clement, William. Plantation Life Along the Mississippi. New Orleans: Pelican Publishing, 1952. 24 Sexton, Richard. Vestiges of Grandeur: The Plantations of Louisiana’s River Road. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1999, p. 22. 25 Taylor, Joe Gray. Louisiana: A Bicentennial History. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1976, p. 147. 26 Sternberg, Mary Ann. Along the River Road: Past and Present on Louisiana’s Historic Byway. Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1996, p. 85. 27 Rehder, John B. Delta Sugar: Louisiana’s Vanishing Plantation Landscape. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

University Press, 1999, p. 280. 28 Iberville Parish website along with GoogleMaps. 29 United States Census information. http://www.census.gov/population/cencounts/la190090.txt 30 Aerial satellite photographs of White Castle, LA on GoogleMaps. 31 Kane. Plantation Parade, p. 57. 32 Sexton, p. 238. 33 Weyeneth, Robert R. “Ancestral Architecture: The Early Preservation Movement in Charleston.” In Page, Max and Randall Mason ed. Giving Preservation a History: Histories of Historic Preservation in the

United States. New York: Routledge, 2004, p. 257

21

34 Cullison, William R. “Tulane’s Richard Koch Collection: A Visual Survey of Historic Architecture in the Mississippi Delta.” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Autumn 1977): 454. 35 Weyeneth, p. 257. 36 Murtagh, William J. Keeping Time: The History and Theory of Preservation in America. Pittstown. NJ: Main Street Press, 1988, p. 42. 37 Spratling, p. 63. 38 Price, 1952. 39 "Noted Mansion In Iberville Is Sold for $2,000." State Times. Dec. 16, 1943. 40 Mims, Sam. "Our Dream House: Beautiful Belle Grove." Louisiana Conservation Review. Serial: Winter

1940/41. State Planning Commission. p. 9. 41 "Two Landscape Architects Buy Historic Belle Grove to Stop Further Dilapidation." Morning Advocate.

July 23, 1940. 42 Mims, Sam p. 10. 43 Kane, Harnett T. and Willard R. Culver. “Land of Louisiana Sugar Kings” National Geographic

Magazine, April, 1958, p. 537. 44 Allen, Barbara L. “The Making of Cancer Alley: A Historical View of Louisiana’s Chemical Corridor” in Davis, Donald, ed. Southern United States: An Environmental History. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO Inc., 2006, p. 236. 45 Matrana, Marc R. Lost Plantation: The Rise and Fall of Seven Oaks. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2005, p. 111. 46Sexton, p. 26. 47 Seebold, p.189. 48 Kane, p. 248. 49 Rivers, Bill. “Pink Mansion Gutted by Fire.” State Times. March 17, 1952, p. 1. 50 Butler, W. E. Down Among the Sugar Cane: The Story of Louisiana Sugar Plantations and Their

Railroads. Baton Rouge: Moran Publishing, 1980, p. 29. 51 Laughlin, 1948. 52 Kane, p. 247. 53 Saxon, p. 106. 54 Cable, Mary. Lost New Orleans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1980, p. 71. 55 Matrana, p. 131. 56 Smith, J. Frazer. White Pillars: Early Life and Architecture of the Lower Mississippi Valley Country.

New York: William Helburn Inc., 1941, p. 192