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Shadows-on-the-Teche

Shadows on the Teche, a National Trust Historic Site

This remarkably preserved 19th century plantation estate boasts an impressive collection of historical items detailing the site’s rich history. (Photo by Carol M. Highsmith) Learn More

Idyllic Landscape

The mansion is surrounded by two and a half acres of idyllic landscape complete with azaleas blossoms, ginger lilies, magnolias and oaks draped in moss. Learn More

Explore the Stately Mansion

Built in 1834, the masterfully executed mansion combines a Classical Revival style exterior with a Louisiana Colonial interior floor plan. (Photo by Carol M. Highsmith) Learn More

The Shadows, built as the home of a sugar planter, is situated on the banks of the Bayou Teche in the heart of Cajun Louisiana. Four generations of the Weeks family lived at the Shadows from 1834 until 1958, when the property was given to the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) by the great-grandson of the builder. A rich collection of 17,000 family letters, photographs, and receipts preserved in trunks in the attic, provides this Southern plantation house with one of the best documented tour experiences in the country.

Shadows-on-the-Teche is owned and operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Preservation History

Immediately after acquiring Shadows in 1922, William Weeks Hall guided the stately plantation home through its first major construction project. By the early 1950s, Hall had exhausted what he believed to be his options for preserving the family home, and he began to look for a suitable steward of the estate. Hall eventually found a partner in the NTHP, who accepted the estate shortly before his death in 1958. Shortly thereafter, the NTHP embarked on a series of repair and restoration projects based on an extensive 1959 survey by the architectural firm Koch and Wilson.

Since 1985, the preservation work at Shadows has been guided by the extensive collection of Weeks Family Papers; microscopic paint and finishes analyses; an inventory, which was discovered in 1946, of the house's furnishings and contents from 1846; architectural artifacts; paintings and periodicals of the historical period; and preservation technology that is being employed to analyze and combat physical threats to the structure. 

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