Architecture of The Shadows
"...we have moved into the New House that I find more cool and pleasant than I expected...I disliked to make the exertion and found it very fatiguing when I did--as I had not been use to running up and down stairs--that when I get used to it will be of service to me--I made some good matrasses before I came and all together we are quite snug after great rubbing and cleaning. I never saw A more delightful airy house my room particularly. I have all the children in it and open the doors and windows every Night." -Mary C. Weeks to David Weeks, June 28, 1834
David
Weeks and his wife Mary Clara Conrad Weeks built The Shadows, a brick
dwelling, on a tract of 158 acres. Construction of the new house began
in 1831 and was finally completed in 1834. Invoices indicate that two
brothers were in charge of most of the building process, Jotham and James
Bedell. One of only three brick structures on the bayou in the vicinity
of New Town in the 1830s, The Shadows was constructed in a Classical Revival
style on the exterior with the distinctive eight white columns across
the front facade. Unlike other columned plantation houses being built
across the south in the same period, the new Weeks home had a Louisiana
Colonial floorplan with exterior staircases, wide down-sloping galleries,
no interior hallways, and numerous opposing windows and doors for good
ventilation in the subtropical climate of southern Louisiana.
As
the house neared completion in May 1834 David Weeks left on a sea voyage
to New Haven, Connecticut to find a cure for a recurring unidentified
disease. Almost six months after David's death in August 1834, an inventory
was taken of his estate. The inventory included the 158 acres on which
the house was built, the house and furnishings, and other outbuildings
valued together at $20,700.
History l Visit l Education l Events l Support l Shop l Contact l Site
Map |