Ardoyne Plantation House, Gothic Revival plantation house in Schriever, Louisiana, United States
Ardoyne Plantation House is a two-story Gothic Revival house built 1890–1894 on a knoll above Bayou Black in Schriever, Louisiana. Its front shows a 75-foot tower trimmed with fine millwork called "gingerbread", two steep gables, and a porch on square wooden columns. Inside, a 70-foot hallway leads to a curving cypress stair; floors, walls and ceilings are native wood, and the tower office has an octagonal inlaid ceiling.
John Dalton Shaffer commissioned architect John Williams to design this residence in 1888, with construction taking place between 1890 and 1894. The building rose during an era when the region relied heavily on sugar plantations and wealthy families invested in grand estates.
The name Ardoyne comes from Scottish, meaning "little hill or knoll", for the high point of the property, and also recalls a Scottish castle. Inside, visitors see Louisiana cypress knee dolls, more than 300 antique travel spoons, plantation workers' pay tokens, antique quilts and needlework, Newcomb pottery and over two thousand books.
Tours run most weeks Tuesday through Saturday at 9:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., and no appointment is needed. The house stands on Highway 311 in Schriever, just northwest of Houma, set among live oaks above Bayou Black. The owners live on the second floor, so the ground floor is what visitors see.
The house has served as a filming location for several motion pictures and television shows, including a portion of 12 Years a Slave, shot at the nearby Magnolia Plantation of the same Shaffer family. Six generations of Shaffers have owned Ardoyne; Lee and Susan Shaffer moved in after the death of his grandmother Margaret Krumbhaar Shaffer in 2007.
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