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The mansion’s 28 rooms are exquisitely outfitted with historical furnishings, such as four-poster beds, antique dressers, and other period pieces that recall the antebellum South’s luxury. Wealthy Southern landowners often travelled to Europe and returned with ideas and inspiration for their own residences and structures. European architectural styles such as Georgian and Neoclassical architecture strongly affected Antebellum architecture. The Rippavilla Plantation in Spring Hill, Tennessee, features the Greek Revival style. The home was a historic plantation with a 1500-acre farm worked by enslaved people. The Civil War had a significant impact on antebellum architecture, in particular plantation-style houses.
Antebellum Architecture – A Brief Look at Antebellum-Style Homes
These homes are much like the manor house in Gone with the Wind, featuring opulent columns and covered verandas. While there are many different Antebellum architecture styles, the term generally covers a vast variety of Southern houses built before the American Civil War. It is precisely this historical significance that makes the Antebellum such an interesting architectural style.
Neoclassical Architecture – Buildings Made in the Neoclassical Style
Therefore, they based the architectural style on the traditions of Europe that represented wealth and power. European immigration to the Southern States influenced interest in grander architectural styles. Many Europeans fled Europe after the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1812 to seek new economic opportunities in the United States. Perched on a bluff in a river bend where Mississippi and Louisiana touch, Natchez, Mississippi, has one of the largest concentrations of antebellum houses in the country. Since 1932, the owners have opened these houses to the public as a part of the Natchez Pilgrimage, today one of the largest and oldest home tours in the U.S.
The Decline of Antebellum Architecture
Exhibiting Piedmont Plain-style architecture, Rogers House was constructed in 1809 by Reuben Rogers in Madison. Designed as a two-over-two structure, the home also has a back shed addition thought to have been added around 1820. Located in Boyce, Virginia, the Long Branch Estate was originally built on 1000 acres of land by Robert C. Burwell in 1811. It is currently 400 acres of house and farm, which is 30 minutes drive from Washington, D.C.
The Hermitage was an active plantation which grew the period's dominant cash crop, cotton. The term "antebellum" stirs thoughts of Tara, the palatial plantation home featured in in the book and movie Gone with the Wind. From grand, pillared Greek Revival mansions to stately Federal style estates, America's antebellum-era architecture reflects the power and idealism of wealthy landowners in the American South, prior to the Civil War. Plantation homes continue to rival Gilded Age mansions as America's grand estates. A few examples of antebellum homes include Oak Alley Plantation in Vacherie, Louisiana; Belle Meade Plantation in Nashville, Tennessee; Long Branch Estate in Millwood, Virginia; and Longwood estate in Natchez, Mississippi. Much has been written and photographed of the homes of this time period.
Louisiana’s Antebellum Homes
General William T. Sherman used it as a headquarters in his March to the Sea campaign in 1864. Still, the owners built these structures in a social, economic, and cultural context where citizens condoned slavery in the United States. Melrose is one of the few remaining plantation museums in the country with original, or even makeshift, outbuildings on the property. Behind the 16,000-square-foot, perfectly symmetrical main house lies a set of slave cabins, a parterre garden and orchard, a carriage house. There is a courtyard directly behind the main house that includes cistern buildings, a dairy house, and a kitchen house. The kitchen was where I met Momma when she finally decided to get out and come look with me.
Body found inside abandoned Antebellum home in Holly Springs - WTVA
Body found inside abandoned Antebellum home in Holly Springs.
Posted: Tue, 27 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
If Evergreen Plantation seems familiar, you might have seen it featured in Quentin Tarantino’s 2012 film, “Django Unchained”. The stunning Greek Revival style building and plantation grounds were used as a backdrop to shoot some of the film’s scenes. Julia and her husband struggled with the property during Reconstruction in the South, and the property was purchased by Thomas Melville Hanna in 1896. After his death, Pebble Hill passed to his daughter, Kate, who turned it into a hunting estate, which were popular during the mid-1880s. After Johnson’s death, the plantation was inherited by his daughter, Julia Ann.
The Early Days
Although some homeowners may renovate and revive old southern homes, it's unlikely you'll find many new homes built in this style. It is easy to assume these Southern residences were merely built for the self-indulgence of slave masters. However, in reality, they were often built for the purpose of wealthy men gifting them to their brides on their wedding day.
Laura was built in the French "Creole" style, rather than in the style of the English or American antebellum homes common throughout the area. While it has the wide veranda that most homes of its kind had, the ceilings were not quite as high, and the architectural style is noticeably different. Upon entering, you see a sign that proclaims Laura to be "The American Home of Br'er Rabbit.” In 1871, Alcee Fortier wrote down the stories he heard the enslaved workers pass down to their children in Creole French.
It is said that Nottoway was the first on River Road to have a bathroom on the second floor. Wicked Good Travel Tips is committed to ensuring digital accessibility for people with disabilities. We are continually improving the user experience for everyone, and applying the relevant accessibility standards. Please let us know if you encounter accessibility barriers here by emailing us at [email protected]. There is much to see and do at Magnolia, so be sure to carve out a couple hours to walk through all the gardens, take a tour of the magnificent plantation home and let the kids enjoy the petting zoo.
Antebellum homes have historical significance because of their time in the United States before the Civil War. Stanton Hall is one of the most decorative antebellum mansions to survive into the modern day. Barrington Hall is a Greek Revival plantation-style home in Roswell, Georgia. Willis Ball designed the house for Barrington King, who helped to found the city of Roswell.
The shift away from tobacco meant they had slaves in excess of the number needed for labor, and they began to sell them in the internal slave trade. She didn’t know much about the particulars of any of what we had seen that day—not the history of the Natchez Trace, or the year Stanton Hall opened, or how many enslaved people were bought and sold at Forks of the Road. But she knew a lie when she felt one and a “slavery mansion,” as she often called the houses, when she saw one. And when we saw the elderly white couple looking at us looking at the playhouse, she knew she was ready to leave.
In fact, Hill’s direct descendants continue to own and operate the plantation to this day, making it the oldest family-owned business in North America. Although the land was originally settled in 1613, a portion of the land was granted to Edward Hill in 1638. Anne Hill Carter, who was born on the plantation, was the mother of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Located in Edgar, Louisiana, just outside New Orleans, the plantation is considered the most intact plantation in the South and still produces sugar cane to this day. As you explore the grounds, be sure to check out the 22 intact slave cabins, which are arranged in a double row along its oak alley.
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