Rosedown Plantation State Historic Site

Daniel Turnbull was among the wealthiest cotton planters in the region, and in 1834 he and his wife Martha completed the main house at Rosedown, a graceful structure that grew over the years. The family furnished it richly, and because their descendants kept much of the contents together, the house today displays an unusual depth of original furniture, portraits, and objects, giving visitors a vivid sense of how the household lived.

The name Rosedown is said to have come from a stage set the couple admired on their honeymoon travels. Whatever its origin, the estate became one of the showplaces of Louisiana's plantation country, and it remained in the family's hands for generations before passing into careful restoration and, eventually, state ownership as a historic site.

The wealth that built and adorned Rosedown came from cotton, and that cotton was grown, picked, and processed by people held in slavery. Scores of enslaved men, women, and children lived and labored on the estate, in the fields, in the house, and in the workshops and gardens, and it was their forced work that made the family's fortune and leisure possible.

The historic site works to tell their story rather than hide it, drawing on plantation records and research to recover names, roles, and lives too long left out of the narrative. Honoring that history is essential to understanding the place; the elegance of the house and the beauty of the gardens cannot be separated from the suffering and skill of the people who were enslaved here.

Martha Turnbull was a serious and dedicated gardener who kept a detailed diary of her work for decades, a document that has made Rosedown's gardens among the best understood of any in the antebellum South. She designed formal beds, allées, and parterres inspired by European gardens, and she was an early enthusiast for azaleas and camellias, which she planted in great numbers.

The result is a garden of long, oak-lined avenues, clipped hedges, ornamental beds, and drifts of flowering shrubs that come into their glory in spring. Because Martha's diary survives, the gardens have been restored with unusual accuracy, and walking them is like stepping into a planned landscape that has been tended, in one form or another, for nearly two centuries.

Rosedown sits in the rolling, wooded hills of West Feliciana Parish, a greener and more varied landscape than the flat delta to the south. Live oaks, magnolias, and pines shade the grounds, and the gardens draw songbirds, butterflies, and hummingbirds, while deer and other wildlife move through the surrounding woods.

Spring is the season most visitors aim for, when the azaleas and camellias peak and the gardens blaze with color under mild skies. Summer is hot and humid, the grounds deep in green shade. Fall brings cooler air and quieter paths, and even winter keeps the camellias blooming and the oaks in leaf, so there is always something growing at Rosedown.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.