LARC's Acadian Village

The Bernard House was built around 1800 in St. Martinville. Its interior is painted with scenes of the 1755 Acadian exile — the forced removal of French-speaking settlers from Canada by the British at the end of the Seven Years' War. Many of those refugees settled in what is now Acadiana, intermarrying with other settlers and forming what became known as Cajun culture. The Bernard House is the oldest of eleven buildings at LARC's Acadian Village, seven of which are authentic 19th-century homes donated by the families whose ancestors once lived in them. Each was dismantled piece by piece, moved, and carefully restored on the village grounds. The construction details reveal pre-industrial methods: wooden pegs instead of nails, mud-packed insulation between posts, hand-hewn cypress timbers. These are not reproductions. They are the actual walls, beams, and floors that sheltered Acadian families in the 1800s. LARC, a nonprofit supporting adults with developmental disabilities, owns and operates the village. All proceeds support that mission. Open Monday through Friday, 10am to 4pm. Admission charged. The reason to go is to stand inside rooms built with wooden pegs and see painted scenes of an exile that scattered a people across an ocean — and to know that your admission helps fund work that matters now.