Mount Hope Plantation House

View of Mount Hope Plantation House surrounded by gardens Courtesy of Lagniappe Tours, the Foundation for Historical Louisiana The Greek Revival style Mount Hope Plantation House Courtesy of Lagniappe Tours, the Foundation for Historical Louisiana

Mount Hope Plantation House stands as an example of the architecture typical of Southeastern Louisiana farmhouses constructed during the 19th century. Built in 1817, it is the only farmhouse of its kind remaining in the Baton Rouge area. Through the years this plantation house has become part of the landscape of a thriving suburban neighborhood, its Greek Revival style of architecture distinguishing it from its surroundings. Mount Hope Plantation's mid-19th-century features include its mortise and tenon construction. Mount Hope Plantation, like many of its architectural type, embodies many traditional forms and characteristics, including the period cabinets, the central hall, the gabled roof, and the simple mantels. The one and a half-story house has a narrow central staircase flanked by pairs of rooms and a front gallery, which encompasses three sides of the house. The wide gable roof is a replacement of the original one that was destroyed by a hurricane in the 1940s. Chimneys are set between the front and rear rooms with simple mantels and exposed ceiling beams that line the interior. The galleries have simple posts with molded capitals on their upper portions. Mount Hope was originally constructed of cypress from the plantation.The spacious lawns, oak trees, and colorful flowers and vegetation of the plantation itself find their origins from a 400-acre Spanish land grant endowed to Joseph Sharp, a German planter, in 1786. German families had settled in the region since 1718, when the Company of the Indies recruited them for the then French colony. Most Germans became culturally absorbed into the surrounding French Creole culture, but even with their addition, the European population of the colony remained small. When France ceded Louisiana to Spain in 1763, the total population of the colony stood at about 5,000 Europeans and 3,000 slaves. Later, during the Civil War, the plantation housed Confederate troops for the war effort.

Mount Hope Plantation is located at 8151 Highland Rd. in Baton Rouge. Tours are available 10:00am to 4:00pm, Tuesday-Saturday. Bed and breakfast accomodations are also offered. Please call 225-761-7000 or visit plantation's website for further information. 

Source: Internet