Touring the Big 'RED STICK'

We spent just a couple of days in the Baton Rouge area...don't miss the Louisiana State Museum...it's both informative and beautiful. It's also located very close to the state capitol buildings and downtown BR. The first floor is in a historical layout, covering the state as a whole.



 

                    Calaboose slave door (jail) Fairview Plantation below.     

<and from Huey Long's home an interior door.

As part of the state history of slavery, is this collection of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" book covers.                                   

 
 

 

 

John James Audubon,

 ^ the naturalist, 

spent time drawing some 167 birds while living on a plantation in the 1820's.

Upstairs, the 2nd floor is designed to inform you on the 5 distinctive cultural districts that make up Louisiana. It's more about the food, the arts, the music, and the social aspects of  each cultural section of Louisiana. Mardi Gras is well represented, as is the music scene.  Pete Fountain's clarinet is just one of the many instruments you will see here.

 

Not far from the museum is the beautiful and massive St. Joseph Cathedral. I am not a catholic, but I love the architectural of old churches and am always a willing photographer once on the grounds. Both inside and out I am, one of those gawkers, and will sit down to take in the beauty, peace and grandness that each holds.

 

 

 On our way out the front door, I happen to turn around and looked up ^ where I saw these organ pipes. That made me want to attend a service here, just to hear the sound of the organ, especially during this holiday season.

My fascination with all things southern began with first reading 'Gone with the Wind' as a young teen, living in the PNW. Like most teens, I lived in my head much of the time and was enamored with the romantic side of well-to-do life of the "southern belle" (the realities of the harshness of that life were not recognized until much later)...which answers the question about 'why' touring yet another plantation. This one is state owned/operated and there is a small fee to do so, but frankly, just the 28 acres of gardens would have been tour enough...go in the spring when all of it would be in bloom. We did see camellia, roses, gardenias in bloom - spring would have been a more desirable time for the massive hydrangea, magnolias, roses and other shrubs that form the gardens. The house has been restored to it's 1850's origins.

Built in 1834, the owners actually planted the live oak allee in the 1820's in anticipation of the house to come. The photo below is from the carriage drive, approaching the house.

 The entrance into the front hallway is beautiful - the walls are covered in a hand-made/hand-painted linen paper, depicting a French countryside theme. It is the original wall covering, and 90% of the furnishings are original to the home time period.

 This photo (below)  is of the butler's pantry, where slaves brought in prepared food to plate for meals and served in the dining room just beyond.

This is the children's room, complete with toys that were discovered in the attic during the restoration of 1956 - 1964.

 Four unmarried granddaughters of the original home owners lived out their lives here. The house was never updated with modern conveniences, like running water, heat, indoor toilets or a kitchen.

The last, Miss Nina, died in 1955 and used this 1850 created indoor shower by her grandfather. Rain water was collected and piped into the large overhead container, the rope pull dispensed the water into a tub (the one here was put in during restoration in 1956). This "shower room" was added to the master bedroom (right) when the addition to the house was done in the 1850's.

Miss Nina and her sisters cooked in the kitchen house out back (right) and used oil lamps and utensils, shown below.

>The stairs go up to the slave qtrs. and down to the butler's kitchen>
both steep and narrow.

Now to the "historic" formal gardens of the plantation.  Mrs. Turnbull began to design them in the planting of those live oaks back in the 1820's. Working each day on the design, acquisition, planting and upkeep; with meticulous notes and journals, her records were used to renovate and restore the gardens in the late 1950's to the original design. Three summerhouses, like the one in the photo below grace the gardens. One had climbing pink roses covering one side of it.

Hydrangeas line the walkways, pecan, magnolia and camellia trees cover the grounds. In the more formal areas, hedges line the walkways...it really is lovely to stroll through and admire, even in December.

Rosedown did have a doctor-in-residence after  a son died of yellow fever in 1843. There is no family cemetery or church on the property...those are in nearby St. Francisville, a few miles down the road.

 

Lastly, we didn't tour this building as we discovered it just the day before we left...the Old State Capitol Building which is now the Political History Museum. Looks inviting.

~ Ciao