Majestic Nottoway Plantation, with its towering size, hand-carved marble mantles and intricate plaster frieze work, awes visitors with its grandeur and innovative features. The 64-room, three-story palatial mansion is sometimes referred to as an “American castle.”
Nottoway was completed in 1859 for John Hampden Randolph and his wife, Emily Jane Liddell Randolph, and it was home to their eleven children. The mansion boasts 53,000 square feet, and originally sat on 400 acres of highland and 620 acres of swamp. It was designed by renowned architect Henry Howard of New Orleans in Greek Revival and Italianate style.
THE CONSTRUCTION OF NOTTOWAY PLANTATION:
The prestige of John Hampden Randolph’s business successes left him wanting a “more fitting” home and plantation to honor his position and stature. He acquired the land for his future castle in 1855, purchasing 400 acres of highland and 620 acres of swamp. The beautiful property faced the Mississippi River, which was a major transportation waterway of the time. Passing steamboats and showboats made river watching an interesting and exciting pastime.
Randolph also began to compile the materials for his castle. Cypress grown at Forest Home was cut and cured under water for four years. The cypress, then cut into planks and dried, was called virgin cypress. Perhaps its most unique feature was not its durability, but its resistance to termites. Meanwhile, handmade bricks were baked in kilns by the slaves, and the renowned architect Henry Howard of New Orleans was charged with the task of designing the grand mansion.
Randolph made it clear from the outset that no expense would be spared in the construction. In fact, the hiring of Howard was the first of many signs of the opulence to come. Howard, a very popular architect of the time, is considered one of the greatest architects of New Orleans in the 1800s. Many of his Greek Revival and Italianate style buildings, churches and homes can be found throughout New Orleans today.
Construction of Nottoway was completed in 1859 at an estimated $80,000. Nottoway has 64 rooms in its three floors, six interior staircases, three modern bathrooms, 22 massive square columns, 165 doors and 200 windows. Designed in the Greek Revival and Italianate style for which Howard was renowned, it features 15 1/2 foot high ceilings and 11 foot doors. Its most unique room is a semi-circular white ballroom with Corinthian columns and hand-cast archways.
Among the many extravagances of the home are:
- Ornamental iron railings, capped with molded wooden handrails
- 12 hand-carved Italian marble fireplaces that used coal for fuel
- Hand painted Dresden porcelain doorknobs and matching keyhole covers from Germany
- Hand-carved exquisite and intricate plasterwork throughout the home
- Brass and crystal chandeliers
- Fancy chamber pots (flushing toilets) and hot and cold running water in all bathrooms, all unheard of at that time
- Gas lighting throughout the home, also unique at the time
- Mahogany stairways carpeted with velvet.
- A bowling alley installed for the children.
Henry Howard hired skilled craftsmen to work on the house. In fact, 40 carpenters, brick masons and plumbers lived in tents at the site of the construction while doing their work. They were paid $40 a month, and provided with three meals a day and laundry service. By June of 1858, Randolph contracted with Timothy Joyce for $3,800 to provide other carpentry work necessary for the house. A skilled mason, Newton Richards, was hired to furnish two huge flights of granite steps for the front of the home.
White lead was used as a waterproofing agent, set in the joints of the gallery floors that sloped down so that rain and wash water would drain quickly. The ground floor of the mansion is concrete, and the walls, made of brick, are 14 inches thick. Cypress was used as the framing lumber and on the floors and walls of the upper floors. The interior walls are finished in plaster.
Among the most beautiful aspects of the Randolphs’ castle are the extraordinary plaster frieze works on the second and third floors. The frieze work was crafted by Jeremiah Supple, a young, gifted Irishman. Supple, who was paid $1,901 for his work, lined the ceilings with meticulously hand carved molds, using a different design for each room. He also made all eight of Nottoway’s ornate ceiling medallions and friezes in the archways.
A combination of mud, clay, horsehair and Spanish moss was used to make the plaster and enormous amounts of the mixture were used – 4,200 yards of plastering, over 1,500 feet of cornicing, and 140 feet of scroll ornaments in the parlors.
When it was completed Nottoway included a massive entrance hall, the grand white ballroom, a formal dining room, a gentlemen’s study, another dining room, music room, numerous bed chambers, master bedroom, wicker room, bowling alley, library, Hall of their Ancestors, front parlor, sitting rooms, breakfast room, wine room, dairy, laundry and servant rooms, and boys’ wing. The kitchen was located in a separate building adjacent to the house so that a fire in the kitchen would not destroy the main home.
Massive columns three stories high support the immense castle. Its exterior includes spacious balconies from the second and third floors, providing wonderful viewing arenas for the activity on the Mississippi River. Gracious curved granite steps lead to a grand entranceway at the front of Nottoway.
It was this centerpiece that New Orleanan John Nelson used to draft a landscape plan for the property. His plan included 120 fruit and citrus trees, 12 magnolia trees, poplar and live oak trees, 75 rose bushes, 150 strawberry plants and a variety of flower and vegetable gardens. However, most of Nottoway’s beautiful gardens are gone today, since the Mississippi River has taken about six and a half acres of land from the front of Nottoway’s property.
Besides the massive home, Nottoway Plantation included acres of prime farmland, a variety of other buildings including slave quarters, a schoolhouse, greenhouse, stable, steam-powered sugar house, wood cisterns, and other necessary buildings for an agricultural operation. After the family moved into Nottoway, Randolph continued to own Forest Home Plantation, with its additional 1,500 acres of farmland and substantial acreage.
Mrs. Janet Bryant, a local resident of Plaquemine, has been working at Nottoway Plantation for over a decade. She serves as the face of Nottoway and introduces visitors to the grandeur of plantation life and Southern hospitality. From movie stars seeking refuge from photographers to children visiting the “White Castle” for the first time, Mrs. Janet has heard it all! She has kept a diary of her tour experiences and has shared a few recent ones with us. She will continue to share her stories so that everyone can enjoy the experiences of Nottoway guests. 
