La Branche Plantation Dependency House

La Branche Plantation Dependency House, on the River Road in St. Rose, LA, is an interesting stop on the Southeastern Louisiana Plantation tour, because it is a visit to a plantation home that no longer exists. All that remains is the Dependency House, which had a function that is pretty much what the name implies. It is what we usually call a Garconniere (French for bachelor quarters). La Branche is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Zweig family, of Germany, built the plantation in 1792. Because of neglect, the effects of the Civil War, the economics during and after Reconstruction, and the division of the property among heirs, there is little left to indicate what was once there, save for "an alley" of Oaks. The site of the main house is on private land, and is not accessible to anyone, without the permission of the owners. The Dependency House is on land currently owned by the Lentini family, and is open to the public.

A tour of the Dependency House is interesting enough, though, because it gives a clue to the lifestyle or young bachelors of the day. Anyone who ever raised teenaged boys can understand the logic of moving their bedrooms out of the house. By contemporary standards, the furnishings are austere. They are quite functional, but not what I would call luxurious. It is not the original furnishings of the house, but typical pieces from that period. Included in the inventory is the actual bathtub of Zachery Taylor.

One of the really interesting features on the property is a preserved slave quarters building, which has been restored, as much as possible, to show the actual living quarters that a slave family (or families) might have, including the sparse furnishings that were common for the time. Preserved slave quarters are rare for a number of reasons. Most often, plantation land was purchased by oil refineries and industrial plants, and such buildings were usually cleared away. The main houses were typically used for office buildings, so more of them remain.