Nottoway Plantation- rural Louisiana
Nottoway plantation is the largest antebellum plantation left standing in Louisiana. It is very unique because it was not ransacked and burned during the Civil War. It was completed in 1859 for the Randolph family. Before building the mansion, they lived nearby and he owned a large sugar cane plantation. After having eight children, the family grew out of the house they were living in, and so the Nottoway mansion was commissioned. It is named after Nottoway county, Virginia where John Randolph was from. He advised the architect from New Orleans to make it the most grand mansion he could and to spare no expense. The process of designing and preparing for building the mansion took around 7 years, and whole cypress logs had to be soaked for 4 years to become pliable enough to bend to make the circular rotunda section of the building. The building is made out of solid cypress logs and bricks made by the slaves at the plantation- both materials made the building resistant to termites....