Roselawn is a Queen Anne Revival Style building Photo by Candice Pauley, courtesy of Cane River National Heritage Area

Roselawn is one of the best examples of the Queen Anne Revival style in Louisiana, built between 1902 and 1903 on what was then Williams Plantation. A few surviving outbuildings, including a barn, a latticed house, and poultry shed, testify that the now urban neighborhood was once a busy agricultural area. The extravagance of the big house suggests that Williams Plantation must have been very successful. Unlike Roselawn, most homes in the state that were influenced by the Queen Anne style are one-story cottages, not the extravagant manors that defined the movement. Roselawn’s exceptional size and intricacy may be due to the fact that the house was not specifically designed for the area. The blueprints for Roselawn were one of many published in catalogues by architect George Barber. Supplies to build the houses could be ordered by mail and delivered to the construction site by train.

Roselawn porch and interior Photos by Candice Pauley, courtesy of Cane River National Heritage Area, and Philip Gould

The basic tenet of the Queen Anne style, begun in England in the 1870s by Richard Norman Shaw, was to avoid flat, plain exterior wall space at all cost. The American models used protrusions, such as towers, turrets, gables and wrap-around porches, to take up wall space and give the building an asymetrical shape. Various forms of wood siding were also used to prevent any portion of the wall from looking plain. Clapboard and shingles were most commonly used in conjunction with one another, though decorative half-timbering also was utilized in some instances. Roselawn utilizes many of these aspects, and it remains one of the most architecturally complex buildings in the area. The amount of artistic effort expended in its construction is unusual in the Cane River region, where the majority of buildings define their aesthetics through simplicity rather than extravagance.

Roselawn is located at 905 Williams Ave. within the boundaries of the Natchitoches Historic District. It is currently a private residence and the grounds are closed to the public. However, the building may be viewed from the street. Roselawn has also been documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey.