Built in 1800 as the modest home of Jean Mouton, the founder of Lafayette, and expanded after 1826 by his son Alexandre — later the eleventh governor of Louisiana. The house is the oldest building in town and now operates as the Lafayette Museum.
The collection is heavy on Mardi Gras costumes — the family had been central to local Mardi Gras for generations — alongside antebellum furniture and an exhibit on the Civil War in Acadiana. Guided tours are available; the basement kitchen and slave quarters give the more honest reckoning of the era.