Afton Villa: Elegaic Postmortem for a Lost Louisiana Gothic Plantation House

At Afton Villa, an unknown designer deployed Gothic forms in a strikingly original manner to accommodate the material, environmental, and social exigencies of antebellum Louisiana. This article examines the cultural issues surrounding Gothic Revival design in the antebellum South, it offers a formal analysis of Afton Villa, and it speculates on the identity of its designer.