Shadows-on-the-Teche is an American
historic house
A historic house generally meets several criteria before being listed by an official body as "historic." Generally the building is at least a certain age, depending on the rules for the individual list. A second factor is that the building be i ...
, garden, and
cemetery
A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite, graveyard, or a green space called a memorial park or memorial garden, is a place where the remains of many death, dead people are burial, buried or otherwise entombed. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek ...
. Formerly a working
sugar cane plantation with enslaved labor, it is located in
New Iberia
New Iberia (; ) is the largest city in and the parish seat of Iberia Parish, Louisiana, Iberia Parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The city of New Iberia is located approximately southeast of Lafayette, Louisiana, Lafayette, and forms part of ...
,
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 ...
,
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 ...
. Built in 1834 for
planter, David Weeks (1786–1834) and his wife Mary Conrad Weeks (1797–1863). The property is also home to the Shadows-on-the-Teche cemetery.
This is a
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...
since 1974 and is currently owned and operated by the
National Trust for Historic Preservation
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a privately funded, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that works in the field of historic preservation in the United States. The member-supported organization was founded in 1949 ...
.
House and grounds
Architecture
Sited 20 feet above the banks of the
Bayou Teche
Bayou Teche (Louisiana French: ''Bayou Têche'') is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed June 20, 2011 waterway in south central Louisiana in the United States. Bayou Teche ...
, the construction of Shadows-on-the-Teche, a two-and-a-half-story, sixteen room house, coincided with the
apogee
An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. The line of apsides (also called apse line, or major axis of the orbit) is the line connecting the two extreme values.
Apsides perta ...
of the
Greek Revival style
Greek Revival architecture is a architectural style, style that began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe, the United States, and Canada, ...
in United States
architecture
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...
. When following this style, builders minimized the installation of superfluous
decorative
Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes them pleasure, pleasurable to perceive. Such objects include landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty, art and taste are the main subjects of aesthetics, one of the fie ...
elements such as
cornice
In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...
s,
moldings, and
trim
Trim or TRIM may refer to:
Cutting
* Cutting or trimming small pieces off something to remove them
** Book trimming, a stage of the publishing process
** Pruning, trimming as a form of pruning often used on trees
Decoration
* Trim (sewing), or ...
. Decorations were severely limited and were designed to blend into and set off the building's handmade red
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 ...
construction. The seven bay entrance
facade is located on the south front and is made up of eight full-height Tuscan columns of white-plastered brick standing on high square bases, that support a second-floor
gallery
Gallery or The Gallery may refer to:
* Gallery (surname), a surname
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Art gallery
** Contemporary art gallery
** Online art gallery
Music
* Gallery (band), an American soft rock band of the 1970s
Albums
* ' ...
or
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 ...
, and topped by a Doric frieze. An exterior staircase is located on the left side of the front gallery that is hidden behind green painted louvered panels that are found on each side of the gallery. Three pedimented dormers are found on the gabled roof, that is pierced with two symmetrical brick chimneys on the ridge line that flank the central dormer.
The north facing rear facade features a central, two level open loggia that is enclosed on three sides by the house, flanked with double
fenestrations on each level. The loggia is accessed on the ground floor by triple brick archways, where to the left, a narrow staircase leads to the second level with double white columns helping to support the frieze at the top of the house, and enclosed by a banister. Three pedimented dormers are found on the roof identical to the front.
Interior
The house has a traditional Creole plan on both floors, with three rooms across the front and two rear rooms flanking the loggia. On the first floor, the dining room, with a black and white checkered marble floor, occupies the center of the house. To the right of the dining room is an art studio, and to the left is a pantry/service work area that was used later as a kitchen. None of the ground floor rooms are accessed by interior hallways, and must be entered via the front gallery or the loggia in the rear. On the second floor an ornate parlor is centered in the middle and is flanked by the master bedroom on the left, with adjacent sitting room and secondary bedrooms on the right. The interior walls are covered with wallpaper, while the cypress doors were painted to simulate oak and the fireplaces were finished to appear like marble.
Shadows-on-the-Teche was furnished throughout with
Federal-style and
Empire-style furniture brought in from the U.S.
East Coast.
Grounds
The grounds were laid out by Shadows-on-the-Teche's last private owner, William Weeks Hall, who established gardens formed by boxwood hedges and
aspidistra
''Aspidistra'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family (biology), family Asparagaceae, subfamily Nolinoideae, native to eastern and southeastern Asia, particularly China and Vietnam. They grow in shade under trees and shrubs. Their leaves ...
walks, that included
live oak
Live oak or evergreen oak is any of a number of oaks in several different sections of the genus ''Quercus'' that share the characteristic of evergreen foliage. These oaks are generally not more closely related to each other than they are to o ...
s,
bamboo
Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...
,
camellia
''Camellia'' (pronounced or ) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae. They are found in tropical and subtropical areas in East Asia, eastern and South Asia, southern Asia, from the Himalayas east to Japan and Indonesia. There are ...
s,
azalea
Azaleas ( ) are flowering shrubs in the genus ''Rhododendron'', particularly the former sections ''Rhododendron sect. Tsutsusi, Tsutsusi'' (evergreen) and ''Pentanthera'' (deciduous). Azaleas bloom in the spring (April and May in the temperate ...
s, and other plantings. At the northeast corner of the house is located an underground brick cistern, 6 feet deep and 11 feet wide, with a 3-foot-high domed top and a capacity of over 4,000 gallons. To the north, between the house and the bayou, is a summer house built in 1928, as a focal point to the gardens, designed to mimic the arches on the rear facade of the house. Elsewhere on the grounds is the Weeks family cemetery that contains the remains of four generations of the family, with the last burial for William Weeks Hall who died in 1958.
History
Early years, 1834 – 1922
David and Mary Weeks were wealthy growers of sugar cane; they owned four
plantations
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, tobacco ...
totaling approximately of
Acadiana
Acadiana (; French language, French and Cajun French language, Louisiana French: ''L'Acadiane'' or ''Acadiane''), also known as Cajun Country (Cajun French language, Louisiana French: ''Pays des Cadiens''), is the official name given to the ...
land. Shadows-on-the-Teche was built on a tract of 158 acres on the edge of one of Weeks' plantations in the parish seat of
Iberia Parish
Iberia Parish (, ) is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 69,929; the parish seat is New Iberia.
The parish was formed in 1868 during the Reconstruction era and named for Iberia. It is p ...
. As a town house, Shadows-on-the-Teche was designed for social life and entertainment. It is said that, at the time of its construction, Shadows-on-the-Teche was only the third brick house to be built on Bayou Teche.
[National Trust for Historic Preservation: Shadows-on-the-Teche](_blank)
(accessed September 29, 2007)
The Weeks family began to suffer from a series of family tragedies almost at once after the completion of the house. Planter David Weeks, who became chronically ill while Shadows-on-the-Teche was being built, died in August 1834 while in traveling in New England seeking medical attention.
Mary Weeks remarried lawyer
John Moore but kept her children's property separate from that of her second husband, as she was allowed to do under
Louisiana law
Law in the state of Louisiana is based on a more diverse set of sources than the laws of the other 49 states of the United States. Private law has a civil law (legal system), civil law character, based on Law of France, French and Law of Spai ...
. This property included the 164
slaves
Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...
, bequeathed to their children under the terms of her first husband's will.
David and Mary Weeks daughter, Frances Mary Weeks (Magill) Pruett and her children Mary Ida Magill and Augustine Magill were vacationing at
Last Island, Louisiana
Last Island (Official name: Isle Dernière, often misspelled as Îsle Dernière, Isle Dernier, L'Îsle Dernière, Île Dernière, etc.) was a barrier island and location of a pleasure resort southwest of New Orleans on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana ...
; where they died in the
1856 Last Island hurricane
The 1856 Last Island hurricane (also known as the Great Storm of 1856) was a deadly and destructive tropical cyclone that is tied with 2020's Hurricane Laura and 2021's Hurricane Ida as the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in the U. ...
disaster. The children were buried on the grounds of Shadows-on-the-Teche.
The Shadows-on-the-Teche household was economically and physically dependent on
Louisiana slavery. Mary Weeks and John Moore strongly supported African American slavery and supported the political changes which they thought were necessary to save it; in 1861, Moore was a delegate to the convention in which Louisiana
seceded from the Union. This political status and viewpoint made the household vulnerable during the
Civil War
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
. Federal troops requisitioned occupancy of the property, and officers of the occupying army quartered themselves in it. Mary Weeks died in December 1863 at Shadows-on-the-Teche, while part of the house was being used by
Union troops as officers' quarters.
The house was inherited by David and Mary Weeks' eldest son, William F. Weeks (1824–1895), who partly restored the family fortunes during
Reconstruction era
The Reconstruction era was a period in History of the United States, US history that followed the American Civil War (1861-65) and was dominated by the legal, social, and political challenges of the Abolitionism in the United States, abol ...
. However, after his death in 1895, the property was passed to his daughters Lily and Harriet, who were compelled to sell off much of the land surrounding the house to meet their living expenses, reducing the grounds from 158 acres to 2 1/2 acres.
1922 – present day
Lily's only child,
William Weeks Hall (sometimes called Weeks Hall), moved into the Shadows-on-the-Teche in 1922, after he bought out his aunt's partial ownership in the property, and lived there until his death in 1958. An accomplished artist and strongly preservation-minded individual, Hall sorted and donated the voluminous
archive
An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials, in any medium, or the physical facility in which they are located.
Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organ ...
of family papers that he found in the house, and entertained many notable people of the age including
Lyle Saxon,
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille (; August 12, 1881January 21, 1959) was an American filmmaker and actor. Between 1914 and 1958, he made 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of American cinema and the most co ...
,
Emily Post
Emily Post ( Price; October 27, 1872 – September 25, 1960) was an American author, novelist, and socialite famous for writing about etiquette.
Early life and education
Post was born Emily Bruce Price in Baltimore, Maryland, possibly in Octob ...
,
Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney ( ; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer, voice actor, and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the Golden age of American animation, American animation industry, he introduced several develop ...
, and
Henry Miller
Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, so ...
, who recounted his visit to the property in his travelogue ''
The Air-Conditioned Nightmare
''The Air-Conditioned Nightmare'' is a memoir written by Henry Miller, first published in 1945, about his year-long road trip across the United States in 1940, following his return from nearly a decade living in Paris.
Background
Miller was born ...
''.
At the end of his life in 1958, Hall donated the house and garden to the
National Trust for Historic Preservation
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a privately funded, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that works in the field of historic preservation in the United States. The member-supported organization was founded in 1949 ...
, which has owned and operated it to the present.
Shadows-on-the-Teche was named a National Historic Landmark on May 30, 1974, and is visited by over 25,000 people annually.
[ and ] In 2022, the
Iberia African American Historical Society opened a center for research and learning within Shadows-on-the-Teche.
See also
*
1856 Last Island hurricane
The 1856 Last Island hurricane (also known as the Great Storm of 1856) was a deadly and destructive tropical cyclone that is tied with 2020's Hurricane Laura and 2021's Hurricane Ida as the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in the U. ...
, where three family members perished
*
Iberia African American Historical Society, located on site
*
List of plantations in Louisiana
*
National Register of Historic Places listings in Iberia Parish, Louisiana
*
List of National Historic Landmarks in Louisiana
This is a complete list of National Historic Landmarks in Louisiana,.
The United States National Historic Landmark program is a program of the National Park Service, and recognizes structures, districts, objects, and similar resources according t ...
References
External links
''The Shadows''– official site
David Weeks and Family Papers(43-page inventory)
Shadows on the Teche plantation cemeteryon
Find a Grave
{{Authority control
Houses completed in 1834
New Iberia, Louisiana
National Historic Landmarks in Louisiana
Historic house museums in Louisiana
Sugar plantations in Louisiana
Museums in Iberia Parish, Louisiana
Houses in Iberia Parish, Louisiana
National Trust for Historic Preservation
Plantation houses in Louisiana
National Register of Historic Places in Iberia Parish, Louisiana
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Louisiana
Greek Revival houses in Louisiana
Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in Louisiana