Une Belle Maison
The Lombard Plantation House in New Orleans's Bywater
by S. Frederick Starr
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app
1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date May 07 2013 | Archive Date Jul 10 2013
Description
This book brings together artist John James Audubon; architect of the U.S. capital, Benjamin Henry Latrobe; Lee Harvey Oswald; and Fats Domino in an engrossing story, linking these and other colorful figures to the history of a beautiful, historic home in New Orleans.
The Lombard plantation house is a rare survivor. Built in the early nineteenth century as a West Indianstyle residence, it was the focal point of a large plantation that stretched deep into the cypress swamps of what is now New Orleans's Bywater nieghborhood. Featuring the best Norman trussing in North America, it was one of many plantation homes and grand residences that lined the Mississippi downriver from the French Quarter. A working farm until the 1800s, its lands were eventually absorbed into the expanding city. After years of prosperity, the entire area of the Ninth Ward, now known as Bywater, sank into poverty and neglect.
This is the story of the rise, fall, and eventual resurrection of one of America's finest extant examples of West Indian Creole architecture and of the entire neighborhood of which it is an anchor. Through meticulous study of archives and archeology, the author presents fascinating insights on how residents of this working plantation actually lived. Because pre-Civil War U.S. censuses never listed more than five enslaved persons, all of whom worked in the house, the plantation appears to have depended mainly on hired labor, both African American and Irish. Eventually these groups came to populate the new neighborhood, along with immigrants from Germany, and then new migrants from the countryside.
Profusely illustrated with heretofore unidentified historic photographs and plans, and with color images by master architectural photographer Robert S. Brantley, this book will equally interest inquisitive tourists and long-term residents of the Gulf South, historic preservationists and urbanists in search of insights on successful redevelopment, architecture and history buffs, and enthusiasts of one of America's most beloved and storied cities.
S. Frederick Starr, Washington, D.C., is chair of the Central AsiaCaucasus Institute at John Hopkins University. He is the author of numerous books on New Orleans, including New Orleans Unmasqued and Louis Moreau Gottschalk. He edited Inventing New Orleans: Writings of Lafcadio Hearn, published by University Press of Mississippi.
Advance Praise
“In the same thoughtful manner exhibited in his beautiful restoration of the Lombard Plantation House and environs, Fred Starr leads the reader through the absorbing story of this sole survivor of what was once an impressive row of Creole plantations in New Orleans. The tale of the Lombard House’s travails and triumphs through real estate bubbles, neglect, and Hurricane Katrina, is a new, compelling addition to the history of America’s most fascinating city.”
—David J. Brown, Executive Vice President and Chief Preservation Officer, National Trust for Historic Preservation
“You can learn the history of the city and its people through the story of one house, but not everyone can find the story and tell it well. S. Frederick Starr does this brilliantly and in the process reveals rich details about the fascinating neighborhood, the Bywater, in which this extraordinary landmark of the plantation era stands out.”
—Roberta Brandes Gratz, author of The Battle for Gotham: New York in the Shadow of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs
“The creation of this fascinating book is ever so much more than a story of a restoration. Indeed it is an accurately researched history laced with culture and character brought forth with wisdom, curiosity, and integrity that only author and ultimate preservationist Fred Starr could capture and produce.”
—Katharine S. (Kitty) Robinson, President and CEO of Historic Charleston Foundation, one of the nation’s foremost preservation institutions in one of America’s best preserved cities
“Une Belle Maison is a fascinating architectural history and historical geography of the lower faubourgs of New Orleans, told from the vantage point of one of the most salient surviving structures in the city. Through an elegant integration of archival research, rare images, archeology, beautiful writing and photography, and personal experiences from his astoundingly meticulous restoration of the Lombard House, Fred Starr has made an important and distinctive contribution to New Orleans literature—and to New Orleans.”
—Richard Campanella, Tulane School of Architecture, author of Geographies of New Orleans and Bienville’s Dilemma
“Fred Starr has done it again—a book that excels on many counts about historic and contemporary New Orleans. In particular his ability to write about historic architecture in such a way that one becomes enamored not only of the buildings but also of the historical growth, development, and the lives of the people involved, as reflected in the built environment. From his extensive research, readers will be astounded to learn of the abundant early architecture, especially West Indies derived, that existed and is now lost. The Lombard house is a New Orleans treasure—what a gift to the Bywater neighborhood and the entire city that Mr. Starr has so beautifully restored the significant building and given us a book to treasure as well.”
—Patricia H. Gay, Executive Director, Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9781617038075 |
| PRICE | $30.00 (USD) |
