Manager's house
An original outbuilding; home of the manager of Magnolia Mound Plantation National Register of Historic Places
The Manager’s House is the sole surviving original outbuilding of Magnolia Mound Plantation. Once thought to be the plantation’s antebellum overseer’s house, architectural and documentary research has shown that it was actually built in 1871, following a tornado that destroyed the earlier overseer’s residence and most of the enslaved quarters.
Architectural Context
This one-and-a-half story Creole-style cottage was built in a conservative design for the late nineteenth century. Its plan—with no central hall, two main rooms sharing a chimney, unheated rear cabinet rooms, and an engaged front porch—illustrates the persistence of Acadian and Creole building traditions long after the Civil War.
Originally located on Vermont Street, the cottage was identified through 1880s plantation maps and early deed records as the “caretaker’s cottage.” In 1978, the Magnolia Mound Museum purchased the building and relocated it to the museum grounds. Restoration work, guided by architectural evidence and a historic photograph, returned missing features such as the porch, window forms, and a mantelpiece.
According to the 1870 and 1880 U.S. Census, the house was home to Benjamin Franklin Brooks, employed by the firm that managed Magnolia Mound as a sugar plantation during Reconstruction. Brooks lived here with his wife, children, and extended family, as well as a hired servant. Their Roman Catholic faith echoed the traditions of the plantation’s earlier Creole owners.
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Interpretation
Today, the Manager’s House is furnished to reflect the 1870s. The furniture—factory-made and typical of the industrial age—was carefully chosen to represent what a plantation manager’s family might have owned. This contrasts deliberately with the largely handmade furnishings displayed in Magnolia Mound’s main house, highlighting the cultural and economic shifts of the late nineteenth century.