The L'Esperance Historic District, located east of Cruz Bay off Center Line Rd., on Saint John in the

U.S. Virgin Islands The United States Virgin Islands,. Also called the ''American Virgin Islands'' and the ''U.S. Virgin Islands''. officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and an unincorporated and organized territory ...

, is a

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...

which was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1981. It is located within

Virgin Islands National Park The Virgin Islands National Park is an American national park preserving about 60% of the land area of Saint John in the United States Virgin Islands, as well as more than of adjacent ocean, and nearly all of Hassel Island, just off the Charlo ...

. The listing included two

contributing structures In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distric ...

and nine contributing sites on . It was a prime plantation area, for agricultural purposes, due to the quality of its soil, its permanent spring as a water supply, and its relatively high precipitation. In a compact area the plantation had numerous buildings including two horsemills, a factory, a

cistern A cistern (Middle English ', from Latin ', from ', "box", from Greek ', "basket") is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. Cisterns are distinguished from wells by t ...

, a great house, a cook house, a storage building, a cemetery, and a stone bridge, plus retaining walls and stone fencing. It was deemed architecturally notable for the high quality of workmanship observable in its Great House and in its service buildings' "masonry as well as the use of volcanic

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

as a building material. This exotic material to the Virgin Islands was probably imported from the

Leeward Islands french: Îles-Sous-le-Vent , image_name = , image_caption = ''Political'' Leeward Islands. Clockwise: Antigua and Barbuda, Guadeloupe, Saint kitts and Nevis. , image_alt = , locator_map = , location = Caribbean SeaNorth Atlantic Ocean , coor ...

." With

References

Sugar plantations in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands Plantations in the Danish West Indies Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States Virgin Islands Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States Virgin Islands Buildings and structures completed in 1719 {{VirginIslands-NRHP-stub