The Parlange Plantation House () is a historic

plantation house A plantation house is the main house of a plantation, often a substantial farmhouse, which often serves as a symbol for the plantation as a whole. Plantation houses in the Southern United States and in other areas are known as quite grand and ...

Louisiana Highway 1 Louisiana Highway 1 (LA 1) is a state highway in Louisiana. At , it is the longest numbered highway of any class in Louisiana. It runs diagonally across the state, connecting the oil field, oil and gas fields near the island of Grand Isle, ...

and Louisiana Highway 78 in

Pointe Coupee Parish Pointe Coupee Parish ( or ; ) 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. Pointe Coupee Parish is part of the Baton Rouge, Louisiana Metropolitan Stati ...

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

. The plantation is a classic example of a large

French Colonial French colonial architecture includes several styles of architecture used by the French during colonization. French colonial architecture has a long history, beginning in North America in 1604 and being most active in the Western Hemisphere (Car ...

plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...

house in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. 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. The home exemplifies the style of the

semi-tropical The subtropical zones or subtropics are geographical and climate zones immediately to the north and south of the tropics. Geographically part of the temperate zones of both hemispheres, they cover the middle latitudes from to approximately 3 ...

Louisiana river country house, the Parlange Plantation home is a two-story

raised cottage ''Raised'' is the third studio album by American country artist Hailey Whitters. It was released on March 18, 2022, via a partnership between Big Loud and her own imprint, Pigasus. Background Heavily inspired by her Midwestern upbringing in Iow ...

. The main floor is set on a

brick A brick is a type of construction material used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a unit primarily composed of clay. But is now also used informally to denote building un ...

basement A basement is any Storey, floor of a building that is not above the grade plane. Especially in residential buildings, it often is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the Furnace (house heating), furnace, water heating, ...

with brick pillars to support the

veranda A veranda (also spelled verandah in Australian and New Zealand English) is a roofed, open-air hallway or porch, attached to the outside of a building. A veranda is often partly enclosed by a railing and frequently extends across the front an ...

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 Mud (, or Middle Dutch) is loam, silt or clay mixed with water. Mud is usually formed after rainfall or near water sources. Ancient mud deposits hardened over geological time to form sedimentary rock such as shale or mudstone (generally cal ...

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is usually defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural ...

, Spanish

moss Mosses are small, non-vascular plant, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic phylum, division Bryophyta (, ) ''sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Wilhelm Philippe Schimper, Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryo ...

and animal

hair Hair is a protein filament that grows from follicles found in the dermis. Hair is one of the defining characteristics of mammals. The human body, apart from areas of glabrous skin, is covered in follicles which produce thick terminal and ...

(''bousillage''), then

paint Paint is a material or mixture that, when applied to a solid material and allowed to dry, adds a film-like layer. As art, this is used to create an image or images known as a painting. Paint can be made in many colors and types. Most paints are ...

ed. 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 ''Taxodium distichum'' (baldcypress, bald-cypress, bald cypress, swamp cypress; ; ''cipre'' in Louisiana) is a deciduous conifer in the family Cupressaceae. It is native to the southeastern United States. Hardy and tough, this tree adapts to a w ...

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.

History of the plantation and the Ternant-Parlange family

Vincent de Ternant, known as the Marquis of Dansville-sur-Meuse, received the plantation grounds in a French

land grant A land grant is a gift of real estate—land or its use privileges—made by a government or other authority as an incentive, means of enabling works, or as a reward for services to an individual, especially in return for military service. Grants ...

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 A cash crop, also called profit crop, is an Agriculture, agricultural crop which is grown to sell for profit. It is typically purchased by parties separate from a farm. The term is used to differentiate a marketed crop from a staple crop ("subsi ...

from

indigo InterGlobe Aviation Limited (d/b/a IndiGo), is an India, Indian airline headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. It is the largest List of airlines of India, airline in India by passengers carried and fleet size, with a 64.1% domestic market ...

sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fib ...

and

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

. When Claude de Ternant died, his second wife

Virginie ''Virginie'' is a French-language Canadian television series that aired Monday through Thursday on Radio-Canada (the French-language CBC television network). It debuted in 1996. The show examined the public and private lives of teachers, studen ...

remarried. (By her first husband, Virginie was the maternal grandmother of Parisian socialite

Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau (née Avegno; 29 January 1859 – 25 July 1915) was an American-born Parisian socialite, who gained notoriety as the subject of John Singer Sargent's ''Portrait of Madame X''. Early life and education Gautreau ...

, who was the subject of

John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 15, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era, Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil ...

'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 The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

, Parlange alternatively served as Union headquarters for General Nathaniel Banks and

Confederate A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a political union of sovereign states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...

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 A state senator is a member of a State legislature (United States), state's senate in the bicameral legislature of 49 U.S. states, or a member of the unicameral Nebraska Legislature. History There are typically fewer state senators than there ...

United States District Attorney United States attorneys are officials of the United States Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 United States federal judicial district, U.S. federal judici ...

Lieutenant Governor A lieutenant governor, lieutenant-governor, or vice governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction. Often a lieutenant governor is the deputy, or lieutenant, to or ranked under a governor — a "second-in-comm ...

federal judge Federal judges are judges appointed by a federal level of government as opposed to the state/provincial/local level. United States A U.S. federal judge is appointed by the U.S. president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in accordance with Arti ...

, and finally justice of the

Louisiana Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Louisiana (; ) is the supreme court, highest court and court of last resort in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The modern Supreme Court, composed of seven justices, meets in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The Supreme ...

. After Virginie Parlange died in 1887, her son and his wife moved to

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

. 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

and Louisiana Highway 78.

Popular culture

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 Maurice Denuzière (born 29 August 1926 in Saint-Étienne) is a French journalist and writer. Biography After studying journalism and a career in naval aeronautics, he embarked on journalism. In 1951, he became a chronicler for ''France-Soir'' a ...

.Dominique Auzias, Jean-Paul Labourdette: Petit Futé Louisiane

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parlange Plantation House National Historic Landmarks in Louisiana Houses completed in 1750 Plantation houses in Louisiana Sugar plantations in Louisiana French colonial architecture in the United States

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

Houses in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Louisiana National Register of Historic Places in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana Cotton plantations in Louisiana Indigo dye production 1750 establishments in New France Creole cottage architecture in the United States

History of the plantation and the Ternant-Parlange family

Popular culture

See also

References