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Shadows-on-the-Teche
- Louisiana State University Press
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87 Shadows-on-the-Teche (also known as The Shadows or Weeks Hall) is located in Iberia Parish in the town of New Iberia. This suburban residence was built in the Greek Revival style between 1831 and 1834 by mason Jeremiah Clark (n.d.) and carpenter James Bedell (n.d.) for David Weeks (1786–1834) and his wife, Mary Clara (née Conrad; 1796–1863), on land granted to Weeks’s father in 1792 by the Spanish government. The Weekses owned fields at Weeks Island in nearby Vermilion Bay. David moved to New Haven, Connecticut, for his health, and died before seeing the completed house. The main house is constructed of bricks fired on site and is distinguished by eight simple Doric columns, a sloping slate roof with three dormers , and two outer staircases enclosed with lattice. Each floor has an identical plan with six large rooms. In 1836, Mary Clara enclosed the rear loggia (cabinet gallery), which has architectural details directly related to an illustration of the Doric order appearing in an 1830 edition of The Architect, or Practical House Carpenter by American architect Asher Benjamin (1775–1843). Mary Clara married Judge John Moore (1789–1867) in 1841, but separated her inherited property from that of her second husband. She died during the Civil War, when federal troops occupied the plantation , and it passed to her son, William F. Weeks (1841–1895), followed by his daughters Lily Weeks Hall (1851–1918) and Harriet “Pattie” Weeks Torian (1864–1945). In 1922, Lily’s son, the artist, historian, and preservationist William Weeks Hall (1894–1958), returned to The Shadows from Paris. Hall devoted the rest of his life to restoring the plantation. With the benefit of a complete set of records and family papers, Armstrong and Koch worked to reconstruct the building according to its 1830s appearance. The Shadows subsequently acquired the name “Weeks Hall.” Upon Hall’s death in 1958, the National Trust for Historic Preservation acquired the property to be “perpetually preserved and maintained as a house and garden museum of its period.” Richard Koch and Samuel Wilson, Jr., undertook a second restoration for the National Trust in 1961. In the 1990s Diana Balmori and Associates and Jon Emerson and Associates restored the garden to its 1930s appearance . Because of the care exercised by Hall, the architects, and the National Trust, Shadows-on-the-Teche is among the most intact and well-preserved antebellum houses in Louisiana. SHADOWS-ON-THE-TECHE 1831–1834 Shadows-on-the-Teche (interior with parquet floor, armoire, and servants’ staircase), vintage gelatin silver print, Louisiana State Museum, 1956.087.115b Shadows-on-the-Teche (garden), gelatin silver print, Louisiana State Museum, 1956.087.118 88 René Beauregard House (three-quarter view from the front), gelatin silver print, Louisiana State Museum, 1956.087.322c ...