What makes a house a plantation house?

What makes a house a plantation house?

A plantation house is the main house of a plantation, often a substantial farmhouse, which often serves as a symbol for the plantation as a whole.

What style of house is a plantation?

Antebellum architecture
Antebellum architecture is especially characterized by Georgian, Neo-classical, and Greek Revival style homes and mansions. These plantation houses were built in the southern American states during roughly the thirty years before the American Civil War; approximately between the 1830s to 1860s.

What do you call a house on a plantation?

The planter’s residence, often called the “Big House” by slaves, was the most prominent building by virtue of its size and position and occasionally was adorned with stylish architectural features. The columned portico, even today, remains the prime icon of plantation identity.

Can you live in a plantation house?

Though some plantation homes remain private residences—most on far smaller properties—many were transformed into historic sites for tourists. But they’re often romanticized as beautiful houses set among elegant gardens, disregarding the darker side of their history.

How big is a plantation house?

A common definition of what constituted a plantation is that it typically had 500 to 1,000 acres (2.0 to 4.0 km2) or more of land and produced one or two cash crops for sale.

What rooms were in a plantation house?

There were two main features found in most plantation homes: a large entrance hall and a parlor or drawing room.

Why are plantation houses so big?

​Plantation House Features ​Not all Southern plantation homes were grandiose mansions. Some started out as practical farmhouses, while others were built to be decadent from the start. As plantation owners made more money, they often added to their homes to make them larger and more imposing.

How many rooms did a plantation house have?

Many of these mansions, often having twelve or fifteen luxuriously furnished rooms, were places of distinction and beauty. These were the homes of the wealthy planters, who might have from 100 to 500 slaves or more. However, fewer than 2500 such planters, even as late as 1860, could afford exorbitant luxury.

What state has the most plantation homes?

Most plantations are clustered along a stretch of the Mississippi River in Louisiana.

What states have plantations?

All of the Southern states had plantations, including what Matrana refers to as the Upper South: Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee. Many of the plantations you can visit today are located in the Deep South, including South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.

Why were plantation homes so big?

Who owns a plantation?

An individual who owned a plantation was known as a planter. Historians of the antebellum South have generally defined “planter” most precisely as a person owning property (real estate) and 20 or more slaves.