Louisiana Folktale: A Plantation Interlude in Exile
Lloyd Sensat
Monday, March 10, 2008
While we were in exile from Hurricane Katrina at Gene's sister's house in Pineville, La., we met with Scott and Kathryn Anderson at the
Bennett Plantation house and store on its original site. This was all that remained of the old Bennett plantation and they were the two most important buildings in the plantation's history. Although the setting was still rural, the two buildings were separated from Bayou Boeuf by the forest and from each other by Louisiana Route 71. As a result, their associations with each other, and their common association with Bayou Boeuf was not obvious. They had stood there in ruins and were vandalized for years. To illicit attention both structures, were placed on the National register of Historic Places in 1979.
The Anderson's were seeking Gene's advice on weather the buildings were worth saving. Of course, we both gushed on how 
important both buildings were. The Anderson's were going back and forth on which building they would move and restore. We convinced them to save both! The buildings have been moved to Kathryn's family plantation, Inglewood and their restoration is under way. (scroll down to see progress) Kathryn's sister lives near by at Hardtimes Plantation. The move and restoration of the Bennett Plantation House and Store near the neighboring plantations of Inglewood, Hardtimes and Rosalie makes this one of the finest concentrations of antebellum architecture in Rapides Parish. Eugene Cizek, of course, is the restoration architect for the project.
Bennett Plantation house
Ezra Bennett came to Louisiana from New York to teach school in1830. He was known for his thrift and was soon acquiring plantation land and expanded his business to become an agent for cotton factors in New Orleans and his native New York.
By 1860, J. W. Dorr, a Picayune reporter traveling through the state, stated that Ezra Bennett was one of the outstanding citizens 
of Avoyelles & Rapides Parishes. Ezra Bennett built the "big house" now known as Bennett Plantation sometime around 1852 for his wife Sarah who had already bore him 8 of his 9 children.
In the latter part of the nineteenth century, his son, George Washington Bennett, substantially remodeled the place in the popular romantic Gothic country house style. A. J. Downing's design book, The Architecture of the Country House was most likely the source. Virtually all the noteworthy exterior and interior details and ornamentation date from this nineteenth century remodeling. The Bennett Plantation house, with its five bays, central hall plan, and relatively opulent late nineteenth century detailing, is one of the grandest examples of a plantation house in central Louisiana. George W. Bennett owned race horses which he ran locally and in New Orleans and Natchez. During reconstruction, he was a prominent planter and politically powerful.
