Page 9 - THE BOOK MCLHHC

MAISON CHENAL & LACOUR HOUSE PROPERTIES & COLLECTION A Louisiana French Creole Tout Ensemble
The dining room table at Maison Chenal is set with French porcelain and Louisiana silver. The floral embellishments on the plates and pitchers were traditionally hand- painted to disguise cracks and blemishes.
When the Holdens rescued a 160-year-old plantation kitchen building in Natchitoches, their children spent hours pulling up floor bricks and marking them with blue crayon to ensure a perfect reassembly.
The Holdens have their own “Mona Lisa” in this enigmatic smiling lady painted by French artist Jean Joseph Vaudechamp in 1836.
The armoire in this bedroom at Maison Chenal is the “fullest example” of Creole armoire design, says Jack, with its French form and Anglo vine-and-leaf inlay.
A portrait by José Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza, the earliest portrait artist in Louisiana, hangs in Maison Chenal’s dining room. The subject is Marguerite Farrar Butler, who once owned this land , making the painting a prized possession.
The overseer’s house doubles as a library for the couple’s hundreds of historical reference books, including rare French encyclopedias that help provide insight into their historical objects.
A triangular portion of plaster was removed in a Bayou House bedroom to reveal the rough-hewn cypress framework.
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