Page 30 - THE BOOK MCLHHC

MAISON CHENAL & LACOUR HOUSE PROPERTIES & COLLECTION A Louisiana French Creole Tout Ensemble
under a Roman Catholic administration. Biloxi was acquired nonetheless by Mississippi in 1811, and high levels of Anglo settlement occurred thereafter. French Creole culture survived through the first half of the nineteenth century, and Creole-style houses are still among the most abundant in the area. Measured floor plans of houses constructed mostly in the mid nineteenth century demonstrate that the Creole plan was being adapted to both the earlier French and the newly popular Angle modules; an example is the Georgian central hall plan. A parallel process was occurring in southern Louisiana where the Creole plan came to dominate rural and urban areas until well into the second half of the nineteenth-century Louisiana Creole Houses have central hallways.
Even in those areas of North America not previously settled by the French or the Spanish, the Creole plan influenced traditional vernacular architecture. At least by the first half of the eighteenth century, an Angle version of Creole vernacular architecture was being widely adopted along the Tidewater settlements of North and South Carolina. Hammock house, the oldest surviving house in Beaufort, North Carolina, is shown on charts as early as 1738. It may have been constructed before the town was laid out in October 1713 because it has no geometric relationship to the street plan. The plan of the house is of interest because it is prototypical of many houses of the Carolina Tidewater. It combines an Angle hall-and-parlor core with a typical Creole periphery.
It is not yet known whether Hammock house was originally constructed with an inset gallery and cabinet range. What is known is that houses with full-length front galleries, rear cabinet rooms, and basic Creole geometry were becoming popular in the Carolina Tidewater prior to 1750 and that this area had much contact with the West Indies in this period. Palladian ideals, as reflected in the pattern books of Abraham Swan, Batty Langley, Isaac Ware, and James Gibbs were influential in the second half of the eighteenth century, and although both Creole and Palladian plans are symmetrical and tripartite, there are sufficient differences in the proportions of the two to indicate that the early vernacular Tidewater cottages of North Carolina were first modeled upon the former. Eventually, perhaps, the Creole cabinet-loggia and the rear range of the Palladian tripartite double-pile house blended together, becoming impossible to separate, and the exotic vernacular origins of this convenient plan were forgotten.
It is not yet known whether Hammock house was originally constructed with an inset gallery and cabinet range. What is known is that houses with full-length front galleries, rear cabinet rooms, and
basic Creole geometry were becoming popular in the Carolina Tidewater prior to 1750 and that this area had much contact with the West Indies inthisperiod.Palladianideals,asreflectedinthe pattern books of Abraham Swan, Batty Langley, Isaac Ware, and James Gibbs were influential in the second half of the eighteenth century, and although both Creole and Palladian plans are symmetrical and tripartite, there are sufficient differences in the proportions of the two to indicate that the early vernacular Tidewater cottages of North Carolina were first modeled upon the former. Eventually, perhaps, the Creole cabinet-loggia and the rear range of the Palladian tripartite double-pile house blended together, becoming impossible to separate, and the exotic vernacular origins of this convenient plan were forgotten.
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Details of Diderot page. Feather pen points to drawing of a cup. Above is a real silver cup with indigo seeds. An 18th century inventory of LaCour House lists a “tasse d’indigo d’argent” (silver indigo cup).
Canadian high buffet piece with carved, shaped doors. Louisiana Indian baskets, French pewter candlesticks.