Chene Vert in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana - Creole plantation house

Magazine Antiques, March, 1997 by H. Parrott Bacot

As with all good collections and restorations, Chene Vert is a work in progress, with changes and additions continually being made to further an understanding of and appreciation for the French-American contributions to life in the Mississippi River valley.

I am grateful to the following people for their assistance in the preparation of this article: Dr. and Mrs. F. Wayne Stromeyer, Sandra Killian, Sheridan Wilkes, Cary Long, Elizabeth Corey, Sidney Genius, Jack D. Holden, Sid Gray, Elizabeth Moore, and especially Paul C. Kiene and Martha V. White, experts on traditional Creole cuisine.

1 Ample evidence that the loggia was always closed in was discovered during restoration of the house, when all the plaster was removed to reveal the brick infill. That on the exterior wall of the loggia exactly matches the bricks used inside the other upstairs walls in size, shape, and the character and thickness of the mud mortar. The support posts and nails also match those used in the rest of the original construction, as does the trim around the windows and doors.

2 Shadows-on-the-Teche is discussed and illustrated in ANTIQUES, July 1984, pp. 106-110.

3 Act of sale recorded July 4, 1821, Parish of Saint Landry Conveyance Book, F1 (Saint Landry Parish Court House, Opelousas, Louisiana).

4 Rev. Donald J. Hebert, Southwest Louisiana Records: Church and Civil Records, 1831-40 (privately published, Eunice, Louisiana, 1976), p. 644. Vanhille was among the soldiers sent by Napoleon I to put down the slave insurrection of 1802-1804 in Saint Domingue (now part of Hispaniola). Captured by British-Spanish forces and sent to a Cuban prison. he was granted amnesty and made his way with two other French soldiers to New Orleans and thence to Saint Landry Parish, where all three married daughters of Louis Fontenot (Simone de la Souchere Delery, Napoleon's Soldiers in America [Pelican, Gretna, Louisiana, 1972], pp. 114-115).

5 Rev. Donald J. Hebert, Southwest Louisiana Records: Church and Civil Records, 1811-1830 (privately published, Eunice, 1974), p. 885.

6 The house depicted in dePouilly's watercolor must date to the 1830s because it has no central hall, although it does have the Greek revival feature of pocket doors between the salon and the dining room. The rendering is in Plan Book 21A, fol. 31 (New Orleans Notorial Archives, New Orleans, Louisiana); it is reproduced in Roulhac B. Toledano et al, New Orleans Architecture, vol. 4, The Creole Faubourgs (Pelican, Gretna, 1974), p. 83.

7 For more about Amans and the other artists mentioned in this article who worked in New Orleans, see Encyclopedia of New Orleans Artists, 1718-1918, eds. John A. Mahe II and Roseanne McCaffrey (Historic New Orleans Collection, New Orleans, 1987).

8 Register of Saint Martin's Roman Catholic Church, Saint Martinville, Louisiana, vol. 6, p. 1057.

9 These include works by Louis Antoine Collas (1775-1856) and Ambrose Duval (c.1760-c.1835); two are illustrated in ANTIQUES, June 1968, p. 792, Figs. 10, 12.

10 For more about Baldwin see Crescent City Silver (Historic New Orleans Collection, 1980), p. 92.