COURSEY • HARRELLS FERRY • MILLERVILLE • OLD JEFFERSON PA R K V I E W • S H E N A N D O A H • T I G E R B E N D • W H I T E O A K
ADVOCATE THE SOUTHEAST
T H E A D V O C AT E.C O M
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T h u r s d ay, N ov e m b e r 27, 2025
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Danny Heitman AT RANDOM
Departed tree gives me a lesson in gratitude When my wife and I bought our home three decades ago, the persimmon tree in the front yard wasn’t a selling point. I found persimmons too tart, and my wife wasn’t crazy about the tree’s scraggly appearance, which gave the impression of a neighborhood stray that had decided to come live by our driveway. We made a note to take the tree down, a chore quickly sidelined by the 100 other urgencies in making a new home. I decided to ignore the persimmon tree until I could do away with it. But as autumn deepened that year, I discovered the tree’s sly insistence on claiming my attention. Ripe persimmons dropped from its branches while I mowed the lawn, some of the fugitive fruit landing on top of me. Our daughter, then just a toddler, had a good laugh when I came back inside with sticky yellow pulp on my scalp and shoulders. She couldn’t help being amused by a father who seemed like a victim of a food fight. Even when I wasn’t being clobbered by the rain of plenty, it caused other mischief. Persimmons covered the grass, making it impossible to mow. As the blade plowed into the merry mess, a lively puree sprayed into the air, making the yard look like it was covered in baby food. I saw no other choice but to harvest the fruit, which is what I should have done in the first place. Wasting food is a bad thing, but what were we going to do with a bushel of persimmons when I winced at the thought of eating just one? My mother-in-law pointed us toward a solution. She made persimmon bread, a delicious dessert bread that used sugar, spices, pecans, and raisins to soften the fruit’s sharp taste. We loved the bread, which is great with morning coffee. It became a staple of our menu each fall, when new fruit on our tree nudged us to get out the recipe.
PHOTOS BY ROBIN MAY
The Old City Hotel, circa 1811, now known as the Bayou Teche Bed & Breakfast, is located in downtown Breaux Bridge.
SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE Historic Bayou Teche home in Breaux Bridge to host estate sale with antique furniture BY JOANNA BROWN
T
Staff writer
his storied Creole-Acadian cottage in the heart of downtown Breaux Bridge has seen a lot of life pass through its
halls. It was built in 1811 as the home of Sylvestre and Marie Broussard, the daughter of Breaux Bridge’s founder, Firmin Breaux. The Broussards raised five children on the bank of the bayou. More than 100 years later, the property was transformed into a boarding house — with the addition of a long hall of suites, and a dining room that boasts a 17 and a half foot oldgrowth cypress table. In the 1980s, MaryLynn Chauffe came along. The house was in dire need of saving. As a passionate preservationist, active civic leader and founding member of the Friends of Lake Martin, she undertook a historically sensitive restoration. Her work turned it into a showpiece of local culture and history, sheltering tourists, bridal couples and traveling musicians. Chauffe died in 2022. Her daughter, Debora Savoy, has been working with the Cheryl Cockrell Estate Sales team for weeks now
An enormous antique dining table is offered in the upcoming estate sale at the Bayou Teche Bed & Breakfast. to gather decades of glassware, antique furniture, old Mardi Gras costumes, cypress lamps, rope beds, black pots and thousands of other items from Chauffe’s estate of multiple historic properties in the Breaux Bridge area. The cottage will host a large estate sale from Nov. 20-22. Apart from a few pieces the family is holding onto, everything is available — including that enormous cypress table, which was
built inside the dining room and seats 18. And they have confirmed that it can be removed from the room. The home itself is also being offered for lease or sale, according to Savoy. Its restoration was a labor of love for her mother, and the bones of the house still stand as a testament to the area’s history and development along the Teche.
ä See SALE, page 2G
ä See AT RANDOM, page 3G
Was N.O.’s French Quarter ever surrounded by a wall? BY RACHEL MIPRO
Contributing writer
The French Quarter is known for its architecture, where layers of history and different Spanish, French, Creole and other influences coalesce into a unique style. One reader was curious about the streets that serve as boundaries of the French Quarter. They wanted to know whether Rampart Street marked the site of a literal wall. Did the French Quarter once have ramparts, or walls, around it? Jason Wiese, chief curator for The Historic New Orleans Col-
lection, pointed to the era when the city was governed by Spain in answering the question. “The colonial city was at one point enclosed by fortifications — during the Spanish colonial period,” Wiese said. The French Quarter, New Orleans’ oldest neighborhood, was first constructed under French rule. French authority waned after the Seven Years’ War, an 18th-century worldwide conflict that pitted the global powers of France and Great Britain. A series of peace negotiations made to end the war left New Orleans ceded to Spain, as part of the
1762 Treaty of Fontainebleau. After power changed hands, Spanish authorities began to make their mark on the New Orleans architectural landscape, with some guidance from the former French rulers.
‘Fort-Prints’ at edge of Quarter Tulane geographer Richard Campanella wrote about the building of fortifications in an article published in The Times-
Picayune in 2017 headlined “‘Fort-Prints’ at the edge of the French Quarter are relics of New Orleans’ fortified past.” Campanella wrote that plans for these fortifications stemmed from French engineers, who, when sketching out plans for the French Quarter’s design, originally envisioned the grid of French Quarter buildings defended by angled fortifications that connected five forts. This vision was fully realized after the war, when Spanish authorities decided to increase defensive measures due to the tumultuous political landscape.
Wiese described this defense system: earthen ramparts capped with wood palisades that connected to forts, encircling the French Quarter. The fortifications were completed and most prominent during Carondelet’s administration in the 1790s, Wiese said.
Formidable defenses Campanella has a similar description of the defenses that surrounded the Quarter, complete with pickets, firearms and even a moat.
ä See CURIOUS, page 3G