Belle Grove Plantation near White Castle in Iberville Parish, Louisiana. Said to be one of the largest plantation houses in the south, this structure was built from 1852 to 1857. Designed by famous architect Henry Howard, its foundation of bricks stood 12 feet above the ground. Its masonry structure was 62-feet high, 122-feet wide and 119-feet deep. It was four stories tall, containing 75 rooms and included a jail cell. It was built at a cost of $80,000 ; not including the cost of slave labor, locally cut and planed cypress, and home-made bricks. The most expert European craftsmen were hired to craft mantles and others parts of the structure. The brick steps were covered in marble. The door knobs and key-guards were made of silver. The plantation was owned by John Andrews, a wealthy planter from Virginia. In the 1850s, John Andrews owned over 150 slaves, and the plantation produced 1/2 million pounds of sugar a year. After the Civil War, Andrews sold Belle Grove in 1867 to John Ware for $50,000. The Ware family lived on the premises until 1920s, when the bad economy forced the family to sell and move away. The property went through a series of owners, but none were able to garner the huge financial assets needed to maintain this large a property. The building began to decay and collapse. On March 17, 1952 (100 years after construction began on this huge mansion) a mysterious fire destroyed what remained of the house. The most well-known public photos of the property and related documents can be found in the Library of Congress through their Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS).
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 21:59:00 +0000