LaBarre House

The LaBarre House is an excellent local example of the Free Classic subset of the Queen Anne Revival style. The context for evaluation is Assumption Parish.

Historical Background

Assumption is one of Louisiana's older parishes, having been legally established in 1807. Its early population consisted of persons of French, Spanish, Acadian, and German descent. This mixture was expanded by the addition of Anglo-Americans after Louisiana became, first a territory (1803), and finally a state within the United States (1812). Agriculture has always been the parish's economic mainstay, with sugar cane as the dominant crop. Perhaps because of its rural focus, Assumption has never developed large communities. The small town of Napoleonville (the parish seat since 1818) is the only place of any size, and its population is only 694.

Attorney George Seth Guion built the candidate in 1909 on land once part of a plantation known as Trinity. Guion's father, Walter, was part owner of the land. George Guion was known to be a member of the anti-Huey Long faction of Louisiana politics, but at this time there is not enough documentation to prove a historical case for nominating the home to the National Register for its association with him.

In 1936 the Assumption Bank & Trust Company acquired the house. The following year Gus J. LaBarre obtained it from the bank. LaBarre restored and maintained the home. He was locally prominent and strongly supported Robert Kennon when he ran for the governorship on a reform ticket in the 1950s. LaBarre appears to have used his influence with Kennon for the benefit of Assumption Parish but, again, the research to document this is lacking. After his death in 1976, LaBarre's daughter, Marlene, and her husband, Raymond Folse, acquired the property from the heirs. They continue to live in and care for the home.

Architectural Background

The following analysis of the Queen Anne Revival relies heavily on the work of architectural historians Virginia and Lee McAlester, as published in A Field Guide to American Houses. It also draws from Fricker, Fricker, and Duncan, Louisiana Architecture: A Handbook on Styles.

The Queen Anne Revival ranked as the dominant style of American domestic architecture during the 1880s and 1890s and, although less popular, persisted through the first decade of the twentieth century. The style was named and popularized by a group of nineteenth-century English architects led by Richard Norman Shaw. The style's name is rather inappropriate, for the historical precedents used by Shaw and his followers had little to do with Queen Anne or the formal Renaissance architecture that was dominant during her reign (1702-1714). Instead, they borrowed most heavily from models of the preceding Elizabethan and Jacobean late Medieval eras, as well as from Dutch and Flemish sources. Architectural historian Mark Girouard has aptly referred to the English Queen Anne as an "architectural cocktail," while another author, Russell Lynes, termed it a "tossed salad."

Shaw's work was well known and much admired in America, and the earliest American examples followed his early, half-timbered designs. The first of these was the half-timbered Watts Sherman House in Newport, Rhode Island, constructed in 1874.

Designed by H. H. Richardson, the house closely resembled the work of Shaw, but with wooden shingles instead of the tiles the Englishman often used to create variety and texture. Various high-style East Coast architect-designed examples followed, largely in the Shaw tradition. Popular acceptance of the style was aided immeasurably by the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, with two half-timbered buildings erected by the British government receiving rave reviews in the architectural press. By 1880, the style was being spread throughout the country through pattern books and the first architectural magazine, The American Architect and Building News. The expanding railroad network also helped popularize the style by making pre-cut architectural details conveniently available throughout much of the nation.

Throughout the 1880s and '90s, a relatively few high-style urban examples, executed in masonry with relatively restrained styling and continuing to imitate Shaw's later English models, continued to be built. However, as it developed and was interpreted by builders in the South and West, Queen Anne took on a look distinctly different from its English and earlier American prototypes. High-spirited, freewheeling, and often constructed of wood rather than masonry, the Queen Anne Revival in these regions followed the Victorian dictum that "too much is never enough." Wild silhouettes were created by projections of various sorts going in various directions-multiple gables, polygonal bays, balconies, dormers, prominent chimneys, etc. anything to avoid a boring roofline and plain flat walls. In fact, designers and builders used wall surfaces as primary decorative elements, attaching multiple materials of differing textures wherever expanses of planar wall occurred. The ultimate projection was a turret -- a round, polygonal or square tower typically set at the corner and rising above the roofline. Unknown in the English Queen Anne, this feature is believed by some to have been borrowed from French châteaux. The goal, according to architectural historian Walter C. Kidney, was "to create something comfortable and charming, using anything and everything that served the purpose."

Queen Anne houses could be built by any carpenter using an architect's plans, pattern books, or perhaps just his and the client's imagination. Despite this tendency to adapt the style to local preferences, there are basic characteristics that help to identify the Queen Anne Revival style in the United States. These include:

1) a marked verticality usually reinforced by the presence of a steeply pitched roof.

2) irregular roof massing combined with an asymmetrical footprint and façade. Tall chimneys, large frontal dormers, and/or the presence of cross gables defined and shaped the roof, while the presence of projecting rooms and/or bay windows (some of the cutaway variety) caused the building's asymmetrical appearance and footprint.

3) A partial, full-width, or wraparound porch/gallery usually one story high. Two-story porches are found occasionally, as are upper-level balconies.

4) The presence of multiple decorative elements and materials (shingles in differing patterns, bargeboards, half-timbering, etc.) used to create a textured appearance. The peaks of gables are often decorated with these materials. Additionally, Eastlake spindle screens and turned columns and balusters (usually in the Eastlake style) are often used to provide texture on the porch/gallery.

5) Windows featuring: a) subdivided upper sashes (usually in the shape of small squares) above large single pane sashes, or b) large, clear single panes outlined by small squares of colored glass.

6) Finally, round, square or polygonal towers/turrets are sometimes present.

Virginia and Lee McAlester have identified subcategories of roof shape and use of material/decoration that developed as the style evolved. In theory, any decorative category could be applied to any roof type, resulting in a rich variety of examples throughout the nation depicting Queen Anne's taste. The roof shape groups include:

1) the hipped roof house. In these, a steeply pitched hipped roof is pierced by one or more cross gables or dormers projecting from the lower portion of the roof. When multiple gables/dormers are present, each is usually located on a separate side of the roof.

2) the cross-gabled roof house. In this type, the roof is formed by cross gables located on multiple elevations. Multiple cross gables may also appear on the same elevation. This home's footprint is usually L-shaped.

3) the front-gabled house. Here, a large, perhaps full-width front gable dominates the façade.

4) the townhouse. This type is defined as a row house with either a gabled or a flat roof. Each attached unit may be individually distinguishable on the façade or may be part of a larger façade design.

The materials/decoration categories include:

1) Half-timbered. As implied above, the half-timbered American subtype is closely related to the work of Shaw and his colleagues in England. It uses decorative half-timbering in gables or on upper-story walls. Porch supports in this subtype are usually heavy-turned posts with solid spandrels. Groupings of three or more windows are a common characteristic. This subtype occurs principally in the northeastern states and shares certain features with the early Tudor house.

2) Patterned Masonry. The patterned masonry subtype is also closely related to Englishman Shaw's work. It features masonry walls with patterned brickwork or stonework and relatively little wooden detailing. Terra cotta and stone decorative panels are frequently inset into the walls. Gable dormers, sometimes parapeted and shaped, are frequent. Examples of this subtype are usually high-style architect-designed houses, which exhibit a wide variation in shape and detail. Most were built in large cities.

3) Spindle work. These residences display delicate turned spindle work in the Eastlake style. The ornament most commonly occurs in porch columns, balustrades, and bands or screens outlining porch ceilings. It is also used in gables and under the wall overhangs left by cutaway bay windows. Eastlake was a distinctly American phenomenon and added greatly to the very different look Queen Anne acquired in this country.

4) Free Classic. This subtype is also an Indigenous American interpretation. It uses classical columns, rather than delicate Eastlake spindle work columns, as porch supports. These columns may be either the full height of the porch or rise from a pedestal the same height as the porch railing. The columns are sometimes grouped together in units of two or three. Palladian windows, cornice-line dentils, and other classical details are frequent. This subtype became common after the World's Columbian Exposition of the 1890s revived the popularity of classical design. It has much in common with some early (asymmetrical) Colonial Revival houses and marks a transition between the latter and the busy, polychromatic, and multi-textural High Victorian Queen Annes built earlier.

In Louisiana, the hipped roof and cross-gable roof types became dominant. The front gabled house occurred only in areas settled by Midwesterners, where the type was quite popular. (Jennings in Jefferson Davis Parish is an example.) The SHPO knows of no Queen Anne Revival row houses or townhouses in the state. Few (if any) patterned masonry houses exist here. Instead, the typical example was built of wood and clapboarded. A few Louisiana Queen Anne houses featured half-timbering but not the other motifs of that sub-group. The state has many examples featuring Eastlake's spindle work. However, the ornamental textures on Louisiana Queen Anne houses are usually not as varied as can be seen elsewhere in the nation. The quieter Free Classic subtype was also very popular.

In addition to these roof shapes and decorative/materials types, Louisiana developed its own interpretations of the Queen Anne. A common practice was to create an asymmetrical footprint by applying a polygonal bay to the otherwise typical and rectangular galleried cottage type. More affluent families often preferred rambling galleried cottages. Both types were one or one-and-one-half stories tall, i.e., horizontal rather than vertical, but otherwise exhibited Queen Anne massing and ornament. Even when a turret was present, such a house retained a horizontal appearance. Louisiana homeowners considered turrets to be the absolute high point of the Queen Anne style. Since they provided little usable space and were expensive to build, only prosperous people could afford to waste space and money building one. Thus, placing a turret on his home allowed a homeowner to boast of his wealth.

In conclusion, Louisiana Queen Anne houses are fairly conservative in massing and ornamentation when compared to the national norm. While the state has scores of perfectly splendid eye-popping Queen Anne houses, the more typical example is a modest one-story cottage with a polygonal forward-facing bay, an Eastlake gallery that perhaps wraps around the side, and shingling in the gables.

Architectural Significance

Despite its long history, Assumption Parish has few real architectural landmarks. This is partly due to its very rural nature. The Division of Historic Preservation's Standing Structures Survey for the parish records approximately 2,000 buildings defined as historic (50 years old or more). Among this group, there are about thirty larger, somewhat monumental, and highly styled structures - i.e., churches, public buildings, and antebellum plantation homes. These include Christ Episcopal Church (Gothic Revival, 1853); Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Gothic Revival, 1856); St. Anne Catholic Church (Romanesque portion, 1909, replacement Colonial Revival tower, 1920); St. Elizabeth Catholic Church (Late Gothic Revival, 1902); and St. Philomene Catholic Church (Gothic Revival, 1888). All are National Register properties, as is the Italian villa-style Assumption Parish Courthouse (1896) and its accompanying Italianate jail (c. 1880). The parish also has two unlisted but possibly significant historic school buildings (one a restrained version of the Beaux Arts style, the other displaying a restrained Neo-Classical design). The architecturally significant residences include Madewood (1840 and 1848) and Belle Alliance (c. 1846), both fine examples of the Greek Revival style and listed on the National Register.

Although the above list might make Assumption seem to be a parish with an abundance of architecturally significant buildings, other important facts show that inference to be incorrect. According to additional survey evidence, the remainder (and by far the vast majority) of the region's buildings fall into the undistinguished category. Among the parish's commercial buildings, only a small Neo-Classical style bank and two Romanesque business buildings are of architectural interest. And, despite the presence of the two landmark plantation houses, most of Assumption's residences are also common. They consist of small Creole cottages, shotguns, bungalows, and simply styled Eastlake and Queen Anne Revival cottages. The latter usually follow the Louisiana tendency to imitate the Queen Anne style by placing a front-facing gable, perhaps with a bay and some shingles in its peak, on an otherwise ordinary house. It is against this background that the importance of the LaBarre House, a large example of the Free Classic subset of the Queen Anne Revival style, must be evaluated. As described in Part 7, this house combines classical symmetry, full height and fully articulated Tuscan columns, an encircling entablature, a simple gallery balustrade, and a classical newel post with the cross-gable and hipped roof massing, wraparound gallery, and polygonal bays of a typical Queen Anne residence.

The previously mentioned parish survey shows only four other Assumption houses equivalent in style and size to the LaBarre House. Of the five identified, three (including the candidate) are as much alike as they are different.
Each is one-and-one-half stories tall, a member of the hipped-roof subtype, and has a wraparound gallery with Tuscan columns supporting an entablature. However, LaBarre's gallery corners curve, while those on the other houses turn at ninety-degree angles. Like those at LaBarre, the columns on one house rise the full height of the gallery but those on the other house are shorter, rising from square bases within the porch railing. Each house has a symmetrical façade behind its gallery. Like LaBarre, one also has large cross gables incorporated within the hipped roof and a later porte cochere attached to one front corner. However, the latter does not match the Free Classic appearance of the house, as does the porte cochere added to LaBarre. Although in the Free Classic style, the fourth house has a different appearance. It has one low cross-gable pierced by a small Palladian window and a flat-roofed classical gallery that extends across only part of the façade without wrapping around either side. The presence of a two-story octagonal turret at one front corner is this home's most outstanding feature. The final example mimics the Free Classic style by showcasing round columns rising from gallery posts and attached to long square blocks below an entablature. The blocks noticeably detract from the attempted classical appearance, as does a rough, square, flat-roofed dormer centered at the front of the home's roof. Thus, this house is the least successful example of the style.

It is the belief of the Louisiana State Historic Preservation Office that the LaBarre House, the two houses most like LaBarre, and the turreted house are all eligible for the National Register, as these are by far the finest examples of the Queen Anne Revival in Assumption Parish. Thus, we will pursue listing the other buildings as the opportunity arises. Meanwhile, the LaBarre house serves as an excellent and important example of the flowering of the Free Classic subtype and the transition from the Queen Anne style to the Colonial Revival as it developed locally. As such, it is an excellent National Register candidate.