Back to ‘Gone with the Wind’ mansions

Press, 2 July 1985, Page 24

Back to ‘Gone with the Wind’ mansions

By

SUSAN KUROSAWA

Move over, Scarlett O’Hara. I’ve just been way down yonder to New Orleans, and visiting a selection of Louisiana’s antebellum plantation homes has brought out the suppressed Southern belle in me.

It comes, no doubt, from sitting through “Gone With The Wind” 27 times, but I’m sure it is not only movie buffs who can appreciate the gracious architecture, picturesque river settings, manicured gardens, and genteel furnishings of the plantation mansions in America’s Deep South.

Combine all that with a hint of magnolia in the air, a languid summer breeze and the odd mint julep and even the bus driver begins to look a touch like Rhett Butler! It is romantic stuff and a look at a couple of the restored plantations along the River Road between New Orleans and Baton Rouge is essential for visitors to Louisiana. Tour buses operate daily excursions from New Orleans encompassing visits to two homes or visitors can rent a self-drive car and leisurely meander all day alongside the Mississippi, calling in at the six plantation homes that are open to the public. The plantation concept

saw its heyday between 1820 and 1860 when the abundance of sugar and cotton and slave labour brought incredible wealth to New Orleans. The rich property owners built their grand homes to face the Mississippi, the vital link for commerce and communication in the days of the steamboats. Avenues of oaks were planted leading down to the riverbanks and most homes were topped with belvederes or lookout towers from which the passing parade of river traffic could be clearly seen.

The arrival of the steamboats bearing supplies, mail and houseguests, were exciting events for the plantation dwellers. Hundreds of such homes existed in the mid-nine-teenth century but, after the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, the plantation economy collapsed and fires, floods and industrial appropriation of land meant the end of an era. Of the six restored homes that remain — Houmas House, Oak Alley, Destrehan, Madewood, San Francisco and Nottoway — I visited the first two on a Gray Line bus tour from New Orleans that allowed around six hours for the

excursion and more than an hour to look around each home. Houmas House is the stuff of the best Southern movie settings. “Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte” with Bette Davis was filmed there as well as a bevy of television series. The Greek Revival-style house dates back to 1840 and is joined by a covered carriageway to an earlier small building in Spanish Colonial style. By the late 1850 s, the then owner, John Burnside, an Irishman, operated Houmas as an 8000-hectare plantation with four sugar mills and he was recognised as the largest producer in the country. His property was spared the ravages of the Civil War when he cannily

declared immunity as a British subject.

Visitors are guided through Houmas by hostesses in frilled blouses and hooped skirts who describe the history and various appointments of the house. In the grounds is a two-storey hexagonal building known as a garconniere. Such structures can be found at most plantation homes. Traditionally they were used by the young men of the house as places where they could make as much noise as they liked away from the main home. It was also considered a good idea to keep the young blades away from the unmarried daughters of any houseguests

Oak Alley takes its name from the scissor-straight avenue of 28 precisely planted oak trees leading down from the portico to the levee bank of the Mississippi. The manion, built by French settler, Jacques Roman, in 1832, features 28 fluted Doric columns to harmonise with the number of oaks.

He called his home Bon Sejour, but the informal name has endured. Oak Alley was bought in 1926 by the Stewart family and since their death the house and 10 hectares of surrounding land have been managed by a non-profit organisation.

Visitors are shown over the property by two former staff members who, in the

best mammy tradition,bustle about in starched aprons telling sassy anecdotes in a soft Southern drawl.

My favourite is their recollection of the young serving boys who had to whistle all the way from the outside kitchen when bringing meals to the Stewarts. The whistling meant they couldn’t be sampling food off the trays.

The River Road is ablaze with the heady days of cotton and sugar supremacy and provides easy sightseeing from bus or car. The levee banks are too high to allow glimpses of the Mississippi from the road, but one is always aware of 01’ Man River’s mighty presence.