17523 Louisiana 418, Lettsworth, La 70753

Commissioned by prominent planter Elias Norwood on a bluff overlooking the Atchafalaya River, White Hall passed to State Senator, General and Riverboat captain Bennett Barton Simmes, the richest man in the parish. The mansion served as headquarters for General Nathaniel P. Banks during the Red River Campaign. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, its significance is architectural and historical.

Built in 1848–49 and attributed to Henry Howard, the Louisiana architect behind Nottoway and Madewood, White Hall rises from the riverbank as a rare survivor of war and time.

Constructed of cypress (milled down the road), pine, and handmade brick, the house expresses Greek Revival form with Italianate influence. Fourteen-foot ceilings crown double parlors and broad galleries; long-leaf pine floors—some knot-free boards 22 feet in length—adorn interiors defined by dentil cornices, ceiling medallions, decorated archways, and a pentagonal bay window. Elaborate hanging lamps original to the house, discovered decades later in a Plaquemine barn, have been restored and returned to the foyer and main stair. These complement the full 19th century antique furnishings including two Charles Lee four poster beds.

In 1863, Union gunboats fired on White Hall from the Atchafalaya River; cannonballs recovered from its walls remain as evidence of a house that stood in the path of history

Saved and moved by loving owners in 1912 and again in 1939 to escape the advancing river, the home still faces the Atchafalaya. The 13.88-acre grounds include a crepe myrtle allée inspired by Mary Simmes’s Civil War–era diaries as part of extensive period gardens, mature pecan and oak trees, historically accurate plantings, a saltwater pool, and recreated dependencies including a kitchen cottage and restored schoolhouse.

Since 2002, rehabilitation has followed the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards of Historic Preservation, integrating updated plumbing, electrical, HVAC, generator, and public water while preserving architectural integrity.

White Hall stands prepared for its next steward.