San Francisco Plantation House - Reserve, LA
N 30° 02.950 W 090° 36.117
15R E 731206 N 3326657
Fine "Steamboat Gothic" style plantation home. Built in the mid 1850's this home is an eye catcher. The size and color. Located on the east bank of Mississippi river. Tours avalible.
Waymark Code: WM52DB
Location: Louisiana, United States
Date Posted: 10/30/2008
Views: 12
The San Francisco plantation is truly a work of art. It is very big, the pics do not do it justice. The grounds were well maintained. Everything was in perfect condition on my visit. There is ALOT of history on the internet.
Here is a brief history I took from the Register application located
here San Francisco is generally dated 1849-50 although it may incorporate older construction. It
is built on a brick platform approximately 100 feet square, said to be 6 feet deep, and exposed as
the flooring of the ground story. Although having similarities to the local raised cottages, it is of a
scale to merit comparison to villas with pianos nobile, such as the first owner may have known in
southern France.
The exterior is a layer cake. The ground floor is extremely simple with square plastered
brick columns supporting the gallery across the front and halfway back the sides. The front entrance
is reached by a divided stair which rises from the front corners of the house to the central opening in
the gallery. The fluted wood columns with cast-iron Corinthian capitals support an arcuated
architrave beneath an overhanging deck. The stair balusters are of turned wood, the gallery railing
of cast iron and the deck railing of wood. The attic, which begins at the deck, is a Victorian
construction which gives the house a unique silhouette sometimes identified as "Steamboat Gothic."
Paired louvered openings alternate with ornate brackets under an immense cornice. The hip roof is
pierced by tall dormers with diamond-paned, Tudor-arched windows and is crowned by a
rectangular clerestory, flat-roofed and elaborately railed.