Longwood (c. 1785) is a plantation located at 15417 River Road in

East Baton Rouge Parish East Baton Rouge Parish (french: Paroisse de Bâton Rouge Est) is the most populous List of parishes in Louisiana, parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana. At the 2010 United States Census, 2010 U.S. census, its population was 440,171, and 456,781 ...

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

, which was listed on

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 1983. Directly across the street is a

levee A levee (), dike (American English), dyke (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), embankment, floodbank, or stop bank is a structure that is usually soil, earthen and that often runs parallel (geometry), parallel to ...

holding back the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

Style

The house is two storied and built in the

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...

Style with four

Doric Doric may refer to: * Doric, of or relating to the Dorians of ancient Greece ** Doric Greek, the dialects of the Dorians * Doric order, a style of ancient Greek architecture * Doric mode, a synonym of Dorian mode * Doric dialect (Scotland) * Doric ...

columns supporting the two front porches. It was built in a non-traditional "T" floor pattern. A rear addition was added in the late 19th century, and the kitchen brought up after that. The indoor corridors, however, are a

cruciform Cruciform is a term for physical manifestations resembling a common cross or Christian cross. The label can be extended to architectural shapes, biology, art, and design. Cruciform architectural plan Christian churches are commonly described ...

pattern. Except for the kitchen, the house was built all together in its entirety. wit
four photos and a map
/ref> With . There are four chimneys that feed into 7 rooms They are on two floors at either end of the house and two in the middle.

Historic significance

Longwood is one of four remaining plantation homes in the Baton Rouge area still in good condition. Many of Baton Rouge's

antebellum Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to: United States history * Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern United States ** Antebellum Georgia ** Antebellum South Carolina ** Antebellum Virginia * Antebellum ar ...

homes have been lost due to

urbanization Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...

and to decay but Longwood remains one of four still left in its style. However, it is unique in that it is one of the few plantation homes in the region that did not add an additional "L" wing when modernizing. The result is the cruciform style mentioned previously.

History

Longwood, a former

sugar cane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stalks t ...

plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

, used to occupy all the land from the

to Highland Road. The original tract was a land grant from the King of Spain.

Changes

Since construction of the house several changes have been made. An outbuilding was moved to the house and converted into a kitchen. Several wooden paneled doors were replaced with glass ones. Bathroom and closets were added to several rooms with windows for the bathrooms. The changes can be considered minor since they did not affect the house's architecture. A shed and barn are located on the property and are thought to have been built in 1928. The property, with three contributing buildings, was listed on

on July 7, 1983.

References

External links