Kent Plantation House

The oldest standing structure in central Louisiana sits on land granted under Spanish rule in 1794, its raised-cottage form a French Creole answer to heat and floodwater. Pierre Baillio completed the house in 1800. During the Civil War it served as a military hospital, first for Confederate soldiers, then for Union forces who occupied it. Six original outbuildings survive — among them a slave cabin, a detached kitchen with an open hearth, a blacksmith shop from around 1815, and a milk house built between 1820 and 1830 where cheese and butter were prepared and stored. The interiors hold Federal, Sheraton, and Empire furnishings, restored under the direction of H. Parrott Bacot, former director of the Anglo-American Art Museum at Louisiana State University. On the first Saturday of each month, open-hearth cooking demonstrations bring the kitchen to life — the reason to go.