White Castle LA - Nottoway Plantation
Wikipedia: Nottoway Plantation is located near White Castle, Louisiana, United States. The plantation house is a Greek Revival and Italianate-styled mansion built by John Hampden Randolph in 1859, and is the largest extant antebellum plantation house in the South with 53,000 square feet of floor space. John Randolph commissioned renowned architect Henry Howard of New Orleans with the task of designing the grand mansion with the intention that no expense would be spared in the construction. Double curved granite staircases, installed by skilled mason, Newton Richards, rise to the second-story. These steps were built with the left side intended for ladies and the right side for gentlemen. The steps for the men can also be identified by the boot scraper at the bottom. The separate staircases were so that the men would not see the women's ankles beneath their skirts as they climbed, which was considered a severe breach of social etiquette at the time. In the rear of the house is a two-story garçonnière wing where the Randolph sons resided. Construction of Nottoway was completed in 1859 at an estimated $80,000, and to prevent any duplicate homes being built, Randolph destroyed the architect's plans after completion.
