Within fifteen minutes of driving time are literally dozens of homes dating from the planter days, all with their own stories and interesting histories. Completely encircling a house that is 100 feet square, the house was named in 1930 by National Geographic Magazine as the finest example of Greek Revival architecture in the South. During the Civil War, the home was used as a Union hospital, and many of the outbuildings and cabins were destroyed. What is so interesting about Greenwood, however, is that the house behind the encircling columns is a near-perfect recreation of the origina,l which was struck by lightning on the night of August 1, l960, and burned to the ground, leaving only the columns, and some chimneys. Ten years later, the Barnes family of Baton Rouge purchased the home site and some of the original plantation and began a 15-year restoration, a labor of love that saw use of original drawings and plans of the house, and a search across the state for furniture that had been a part of the early history of the home.
Greenwood is open to the public.
St. Francisville sits in the middle of the richest collection of antebellum homes, buildings, and businesses north of the city of New Orleans and in the state of Louisiana. And the rolling hills, reminiscent of English countryside, certainly are not a part of the beauty of the bustle of New Orleans. St. Francisville, and its antebellum homes are part of a slower, more genteel time, inviting you, the traveler, to pull in, visit, stay a while, and experience the aura of tranquility and taste that was pre-war Louisiana. For further information, contact the West Feliciana Tourist Commission, P.O. Box 1548 St. Francisville, LA 70775. Copyright 2001 Gordon Hutchinson.