Landscape Information
Established in the 1830s by Daniel and Martha Barrow Turnbull, Rosedown Plantation is considered today to be one of the most intact, documented examples in the south. Historically encompassing 3,455 acres at its antebellum height, it has components typical of cotton plantations. Martha’s garden diary, kept from 1836 through 1895, documents the plant selection and management of the 18-acre pleasure gardens. The variously Baroque and Picturesque gardens flank a 660-foot live oak allée, known as Martha’s Avenue, leading to the 1835 residence and several dependencies. Eight white marble Italian sculptures accented the garden-allée boundary. The house is fronted by a large oval forecourt with a diamond parterre (now yaupon holly) and flanked by two tall water oaks.
In 1956 Mrs. Catherine Fondren Underwood purchased Rosedown and commissioned landscape architect Ralph Ellis Gunn and architect George M. Leake to restore the property. Based on an extensive 1930’s documentation project by Richard Koch of the Historic American Buildings Survey, Gunn’s sensitive revisions to the estate included removing an 1860’s addition to the house and adding a pond and fountains to complement the distinctive combination of rectangular forms and meandering paths. Over the years the acreage was subdivided, and in 2000, 374 acres were purchased by the State of Louisiana and opened the site to the public; Rosedown was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2005.
