Butler Greenwood Plantation, Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana, United States

Butler Greenwood Plantation is a raised cottage-style plantation house on U.S. Route 61, 1.4 miles north of St. Francisville. Its rooms hold oil portraits, a Brussels carpet, gilded pier mirrors, a French Pleyel grand piano and a Victorian formal parlor whose twelve matching pieces keep their original upholstery. Formal gardens and groves of live oaks surround the house; the detached brick kitchen dates from the 1790s and the garden gazebo from the 1850s.

Dr. Samuel Flower, a Quaker physician from Pennsylvania, established the plantation in the 1770s, when the area was British territory, and later treated Spanish governor Manuel Gayoso. After his death in 1813, his daughter Harriett and her husband Judge George Mathews, chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court, ran the estate using enslaved labor to grow indigo, cotton, sugarcane and corn shipped from a dock on Bayou Sara. Their son Charles Lewis Mathews helped manage it after the judge died in 1836.

The house holds the area's finest original Victorian formal parlor, its twelve matching pieces still in their original upholstery, alongside oil portraits, a French Pleyel grand piano, Brussels carpet and gilded pier mirrors. The original detached brick kitchen dates from the 1790s and the garden gazebo from the 1850s. Author Anne Butler, of the seventh generation, lives here with her daughter Chase Poindexter.

The property sits on US Highway 61 in St. Francisville and can be explored on foot, with quiet gardens and woodlands offering a gentle setting for walks. The owners offer house and garden tours, so it is best to call ahead to arrange a visit.

The main house is a raised cottage-style plantation house, not a Gothic Revival manor. Its original detached brick kitchen dates from the 1790s, and the garden gazebo from the 1850s. Author Anne Butler, of the seventh generation of the family, lives there with her daughter Chase Poindexter.