Along the plantation road that follows the Mississippi between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, an avenue of century-old live oaks leads to a colonnaded mansion that was once the heart of America's largest sugar empire. Houmas House, in Darrow, Louisiana, is one of the great stops on lower Mississippi river cruises. Paddle wheelers and river ships dock at the foot of the levee; all it takes is crossing it to step back in time.

The Levee, the Trees, the Façade

The first encounter remains the most powerful: from the top of the grassy levee, the house appears at the end of its curtain of oaks draped in Spanish moss, exactly as 19th-century travellers once saw it from the deck of their steamboat. The estate takes its name from the Houma people, who occupied these lands before colonization. The main residence, completed in the 1840s, displays the Greek Revival architecture of sugar's golden years: Doric columns, two-storey galleries, a spiral staircase.

The Sugar Prince

In the mid-19th century, Irish businessman John Burnside bought the property and turned it into the centre of one of the largest sugar operations on the continent, earning him the nickname "the Sugar Prince." During the Civil War, he invoked his British citizenship to shield the estate from military occupation, and the house came through the conflict unscathed. Fortunes, bankruptcies, and revivals followed one after another since then, right up to the full restoration that brought the estate back to its glory-days appearance.

A Tour Between Grandeur and Memory

Guides, often in period costume, lead visitors room by room: period furniture, portraits, silverware, tall bedrooms opening onto the galleries. They tell of balls, weddings, and harvests, but not only that. This prosperity rested, until the Civil War, on the labour of hundreds of enslaved people; their story is now part of the narrative, and hearing it matters to truly understanding this place. Film crews have often made themselves at home here too: several movies and television series have been shot beneath these high ceilings.

The Gardens

Around the mansion, some fifteen hectares of gardens can be explored freely: boxwood-lined paths, ponds covered in water lilies, statues, centuries-old oaks with branches resting on the ground, flower beds that change with the seasons. The views of the façade shift with every turn of the path, so much so that photographers often lose track of time and spend a good part of the stop here without noticing. The gardeners have made it one of the finest landscaped grounds in the South, and many passengers spend as much time here as in the house itself.

Louisiana Cuisine

The estate houses several restaurants and a bar set up in the old outbuildings. Depending on the timing of the stop, you can sample refined Louisiana cuisine: gumbo, crawfish, catfish, pain perdu. A glass of iced tea enjoyed under the oaks, facing the columns, ranks among the simple pleasures of the stop. A gift shop rounds things off, with products from the region.

The Essentials of the Stop

• Docking: at the foot of the levee, a few minutes' walk to the estate.
• Guided tour of the residence: about an hour; frequent departures throughout the day.
• Gardens: self-guided, allow an extra hour.
• Strong heat and humidity from May to September: hat and water recommended.

Heading Back to the River

Heading back to the ship, many passengers turn for one last look from atop the levee: the white house floats at the end of its avenue of shadows, just as steamboat passengers saw it a century and a half ago. Houmas House leaves a double impression, one of both beauty and gravity, that of a South finally telling its whole story, splendours and historical debts alike.