Building Practices and Carpenters' Tools That Created Alexandria's Kent Plantation House
Building Practices and Carpenters' Tools That Created Alexandria's Kent Plantation House By N. H. Sand and Peter Koch SouthernForest ExperimentStation Forest Service. U. S. Departmentof Agriculture I t is the year 1796or thereabouts. ily, and he succeeds so well that designed and made with good Louisiana is a Spanish colony with the dwelling still remains sound and materials. French traditions and culture. attractive after 175 years, a very Now known (from a later owner) Pierre Baillio II, of a prominent great age for a house in America. asthe Kent PlantationHouse, Bail- French family, has a sizeable grant To reach it takes good luck-escape lio's home has recently beenmade of land along the Red River near from fire, flood and the Civil War. into a museum in Alexandria, a a small town called EI Rapido. Continuous occupancy and the care short distance from where it was Baillio undertakes to have a that goes with it also helps. Most originally constructed. There it house built for himself and his fam- of all, the house must be soundly standsas testimony to the skins of early Louisiana carpenter crafts- men. In contrast to architects, who seemto leapinto print with no great difficulty, carpenters are a silent tribe. They come to the job with their tool chests, exercise many skins of construction and some of design, and then pass on. Often their works are their only record. Occasionally some tools survive and, after generationsof neglectand abuse,these may find their way int() antique shopsor museums. Thus it is difficult to speakin de- tail of the builders of any given house.
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