Rienzi Plantation House, Greek Revival plantation house in Thibodaux, United States.
Rienzi Plantation House is a nearly square brick mansion of about 70 by 72 feet, built between 1814 and 1825 at 215 East Bayou Road. It is surrounded by two-story galleries on brick pillars below and wooden pillars above, with a double front staircase and a cruciform central hall on each floor. Its main floor sits on the second level, and most of the lumber is cypress with longleaf pine flooring.
The land was part of Henry Schuyler Thibodaux's first Spanish grant, made by Baron Carondelet around 1792. In 1814 Henry Fields, a businessman and architect, bought the plantation and is believed to have built the present house between 1814 and 1825. Thomas Bibb, Alabama's second governor, owned it from 1835 and first called it Rienzi, likely after the popular novel and Wagner opera about the 14th-century Italian patriot.
The name Rienzi comes from a novel and Wagner opera about a 14th-century Italian patriot, popular in the 1840s when Thomas Bibb, Alabama's second governor, owned the plantation. The 1860 census listed the estate of J.Y. de Agana as 2,799 acres with 306 slaves. In 1859 it produced 950 hogsheads of sugar, the most in Lafourche Parish.
The property sits directly across from downtown Thibodaux along Bayou Lafourche at 215 East Bayou Road. The grounds feature large live oak trees that provide shade and are part of the registered landscape.
Rienzi's laborers were among the first to strike in the fall of 1887, in a movement organized by the Knights of Labor in Thibodaux and nearby parishes. During the violence that followed, Rienzi's overseer was shot in the face but was not severely injured.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 94,561 contributors worldwide.