Jean Jacques Haydel Jr. and his brother Marcellin significantly increased the population of enslaved people and, by 1840, nearly 200 were housed in 22 cabins. Azélie, the widow of Marcellin, took control of the plantation from 1840 until her death in November 1860. That same year she was listed among the largest slaveholders of Louisiana and her estate encompassed 2,200 acres of land (Menn, 1964, pp. 360-361). The plantation's production peaked in 1854 with 407 hogsheads of sugar (Champommier, 1854). From the time of Ambroise Heidel to that of Marie Azélie Haydel, a small farm dedicated entirely to food crops had been turned into a huge agro-industrial unit. The Big House built by Jean Jacques Haydel Sr. remains today one of the finest surviving examples of Spanish and French Creole architecture and one of the earliest and bestpreserved raised cottages in Louisiana. Moreover, it is one of the very few historic American houses known to have high-quality and complex decorative wall paintings on both its exterior and its interior. For Kilpatrick, the elaborate  
ornamentation conveyed to all visitors the high level of economic success and cultural sophistication that the Haydels had attained (Kilpatrick, 1992, p. 3).
![img-1.jpeg](img_ref_2)  
Figure i. The master house of Haydel plantation  
Owing to the number of outbuildings added to the site over the years, the Whitney Plantation has great historical value and provides a unique perspective on the development of the Louisiana plantation. Very few original plantation outbuildings have been preserved and it is very unusual to find them elsewhere along the river. The plantation also houses the last extant example of a true French Creole barn and the oldest separate kitchen in Louisiana (Edwards 1991, pp. 1-20). It was added to the American National Register of Historic Places in 1992.