32900 Louisiana 405
White Castle, Louisiana, USA

Belle Grove Plantation

Completed in 1857, for the widowed John Andrews (1804-1884), a sugar planter from Virginia. Containing 75-rooms, it was the largest house built in the American south prior to the Civil War. Overlooking the Mississippi River, it was designed by Henry Howard and brought to life by James Gallier. To give some idea of its scale, the pillars on the portico towered up 30-feet to the Corinthian capitals, each of which measured a further 6-feet. During the Civil War, Andrews fled to Texas with his slaves, leaving his daughters to preside over Belle Grove. After the war, neither he nor his daughters or sons-in-law had the funds to maintain it and he died at New Orleans..

The plantation was originally named "Bell Grove" for a Mr Bell before its beautification lent itself to be renamed "Belle Grove". The pink-colored mansion towered up 62-feet and had a width of 122-feet. Its columns were carved from solid cedar; the key locks and door knobs were silver; and while the plantation covered over 2,100-acres, the mansion stood within 28-acres of lush landscaped gardens enjoying a river frontage of just under a mile.

Henry B. Ware, to Stone Ware

In 1868, Andrews sold Belle Grove for the hugely deflated price of just $12,000 to Henry B. Ware (1813-1898) who had made his fortune in Texas, not only as a planter but also as a manufacturer of cotton. Ware initially supported the South, but towards the end of the Civil War he pushed for peace and, in time, giving the African-Americans the vote. Declared a traitor to whites, he left Texas for New Orleans before settling at Belle Grove and from 1879 retired to his house overlooking the ocean at Pass Christian, Mississippi.

From 1879, Belle Grove became home to Colonel James A. Ware who with his brother, John, purchased the property from his father before buying out John. He was a cotton and sugar broker and it was said of him and his wife (Mary) that, "her charming personality has made the hospitality of the Wares home proverbial. Mr Ware during his life found his greatest delight in entertaining his friends, and frequent house parties, of both young and old, were guests at Belle Grove". Through Mrs Ware ownership of Belle Grove came back full circle: she was the daughter of Dr John Phillip Read Stone with whom John Andrews had purchased the plantation in the 1830s; and, her mother, Mrs Penelope Lynch (Adams) Stone, was a near relation to and namesake of Mrs Penelope Lynch (Adams) Andrews.

"The Servants Will Probably Sweep it up in the Morning"

Mrs James Ware is recalled in Kane's 'Plantation Parade': she "brought to the pink palace not only her beauty, but also the taste and inheritance of an heiress. Traveling in Europe and America, she sent boatloads of material back to Louisiana: paintings, tapestries, escritoires, foot stands, armoires, wall-pieces-an interior splendid to fit the florid walls. And Belle Grove had a hostess with an air equal its potentialities. She is pictured as a social woman, whose joy was the soirée, the assembling of 85-people at a table, the planning of a week-end party for 60-couples, with a tournament à la Walter Scott. The river folk invariably recall her as attired in evening clothes: black velvets, décolleté (low necked dresses), with trains, and ropes of jewels and a diamond lorgnette. With her dashing looks went a head of fiery red hair, which never faded. She kept her figure, her air, and her scarlet tresses... (she was) followed, as was her custom at some of her fêtes, by two grinning Negro boys in Oriental costume, turbans and all... (on one occasion she) dropped a diamond earring at the dinner table; two men leaned over to hunt for it. 'Don’t bother, please,’ she smiled. ‘The servants will probably sweep it up in the morning.’”

"Left to Wander the Immense Mansion Friendless"

James and Mary had one son, J. Stone Ware. In Harnett Kane's book 'Plantation Parade,' it is said that: "As a youth he enjoyed roaring around the property in his sports car, attired in jacket, goggles and gloves like a New South version of Mr Toad. He had everything, he recalled, but was terribly lonely, left to wander the immense mansion friendless”. His father died in 1908 (the only owner of Belle Grove to have ever died within its walls) and Stone succeeded to the plantation, running just as his father had done, but leaving his mother in the mansion while he and his wife, Carmelite, moved into a smaller house.

Worn Out - The End of the Line

The Old Dowager, Mrs James Ware, died in 1923 followed by Stone's wife Carmelite in 1924. Then a hurricane tore through the sugar cane before a frost split the stalks the following year leaving the juice turned to vinegar. The final straw was a run of mosaic disease that decimated the crops and by the mid 1920s, "Mr Ware found it expedient to cease operating Belle Grove". The great mansion sat empty until 1943 when it was bought with 17-acres for a mere $2,000 by Frederick J. Nehrbass who contemplated a complete renovation. But in 1952 it fell victim to that all-too-often-heard American phenomenon, the "mysterious fire," and what remained was bulldozed into the ground in 1958.