Shadows-on-the-Teche

Shadows-on-the-Teche is a National Historic Landmark on Main Street in the heart of New Iberia — a Greek Revival plantation house built in 1834 by sugar planter David Weeks, set directly on the bank of Bayou Teche under a canopy of live oak trees. The house is one of the best-preserved antebellum plantation homes in Louisiana, managed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation with a relatively honest interpretation of both the planter's family history and the enslaved workforce that built and operated the estate.

The house museum occupies about an hour of guided tour time; the interpretation has been updated in recent years to include the lives of the enslaved people who lived and worked here, with documentary evidence drawn from the plantation's surviving records. The grounds — the bayou bank, the oaks, the kitchen building — are beautiful and worth spending time in after the tour. The location on New Iberia's Main Street makes it the natural anchor for a walking exploration of the downtown historic district.

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A story
Shadows-on-the-Teche was acquired by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1958, making it one of the first Southern plantation houses to pass into national stewardship. The donation was made by Weeks Hall, the last private owner, who had spent his life as a painter and preservationist. Hall famously invited visitors including Walt Disney, Mae West, and Henry Miller to the house; their signatures are collected in a guest book that now forms part of the archive.

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