Below is a letter received in 1984 from W. Michael Stirling, a descendent living in New York, about their family estate, and members of the family. Because of a family dispute over inferitance, the top part of the house was removed and resulting lumber was used to build two new smaller houses for others in the family. In reconstucting how the original house must have looked the artist forgot to place dormer windows in the roof, a necessity in that semi-tropical clime, to let the rising inside heat out, but at the same time prevent the direct rays of the sun from entering and adding more heat. Dormer windows are a feature on most Louisiana Plantation Houses. The house was built with it's back to the sun for further coolness, and the rooms were very large with high ceilings to create an atmosphere.
Cypress grows wild in the Louisiana swamps and so was readily available.
In that part of central Louisiana it was the fashion to build the Plantation Houses of wood, but they were grandiose affairs, usually three or four floors high, and with as many as up to 20 rooms. Shade trees were usually planted around the house, but in areas where forest fires were a danger, a wide bare area encircled the house just beyond the shade trees. This prevented a forest fire from reaching the house. In some plantation Houses, during the hot weather, cooking was done outside in a shed, to prevent heat from accumulating indoors. The cooked food was carried inside and sometimes the family dined on the veranda.