Evergreen Plantation

I think of the three or so plantation tours I've done in New Orleans, this has been my favorite. The grounds, while very comprehensive and complete, are not the fanciest (a la Southern Oaks Plantation). However, the tour itself is the very very best.I had a local native, Renee, as my tour guide, and she is an 18-year veteran at giving the tours. Since it's just her, they only offer Mon-Sat 11:30 and 2pm tours. (She gets a little half hour lunch break in there.)+ Experienced local guide+ Tour includes Creole era (1700s French/German), Antebellum era (Louisiana purchase/slaves/America), post-war through Great Depression, after the Great Depression (restoration of house and grounds)+ Comprehensive grounds with the original slave quarters, kitchen, garconnieres, pidgeon houses, 1900s boxwood gardens, Creole interior, and Greek Revival exterior+ Owner cares for main house and is an avid period furniture collector+ Senior discounts- Cash only- Limited tours (11:30am, 2pm, no Sundays)Renee is half Creole and half American. To me, it was always hard to understand what is a Creole vs. a Cajun or American. She does a great job of explaining it all: the relevant time periods, the change in ownership, the architectural and garden additions, the functions and placements of the various buildings, and even the difference in slave treatment during the Creole vs Antebellum periods.You can take pictures everywhere except the interior of the house, as it is still in use by the owner.As a history buff and a little bit of a school nerd, this was by far my favorite plantation tour in the Vacherie region.

Very educational visit. The premises is stunning. The house itself is so beautiful. 2 reasons why we stopped by 1.) It was in the movie Django and Antebellum. 2.) It is on the way to Oak Alley plantation from New Orleans. This place too had an alley that had lined Oak trees. Tickets must be reserved online. It is great to know that your ticket prices goes to restoring the place and for maintenance on the property. Definitely a must go. Highly recommend to others.

This was an amazing find for us. The drive in is under all these beautiful oak trees! Then you take a two hour walking tour of the plantation. The tour guide was great and funny. The house is unique on the inside. And the grounds are beautiful. The moss trees along the cabins are definitely picture worthy!

The highlight of our day was truly Evergreen. A small group of only 10 others lent itself to an intimate and informative experience. Being able to wander the grounds and take the time to connect with the history of the plantation on a unique level was the highlight of our day. Hundreds of pictures later we left having a less commercialized and tourist-y view of the history of the area. Our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and interactive and the tour was personalized to our groups questions. I loved that we were given time to explore and weren't herded around in a group from station to station aimlessly.

Robin, our guide gave us a great history of everything from the owners, the buildings, the house and geography from the mid-1700's - late 1800's. The main house is the original and was one of the few that didn't burn down as well as the slave quarters in the back. The trees are so beautiful and the history of the owners made this place so unique as it was run under French rules. The drive out to the plantation also really gives you a view of how swampy it is. Well worth it and recommend this tour to all.

3.5 stars because Peter could have gone deeper I could tell he was highly knowledgeable but very careful with his information. 4 stars because this is a private own business and beautifully preserved. To be honest the only reason why I decided to take a plantation tour was out of anger. I needed to answer the question why would someone make a business out of this. After touring Evergreen Plantation I had a new perspective. Although I am still very much angry my knowledge and depth of understanding has been expanded. I can further share different viewpoints and perspectives with others. It's important to have intelligent conversations and open conversations about difficult topics. The business and brutality of slavery and racism are those difficult topics.My next plantation tour I would like for those on the tour to share their experience in a brief post tour discussion.Great experience all around and if you enjoy history and the grandeur of colonial life in Louisiana Evergreen is a good start. Continue to seek the freedom of knowledge.

It's taken me a while to write this review because my tour here was so disappointing, but here it is. I absolutely agree with some of the 1-star reviews that haven't made it to the front page. Our tour was full of revisionist history. It was so uncomfortable. Our tour guide downplayed the horrors of slavery and instead tried to make light of it where she could. For instance, when visiting the slave cabins, she mentioned how the slaves there had Sundays "off" to do whatever they pleased ("besides leave, of course!"). She also tried to justify the plantation owner's decision to have slaves: "When her husband died, she was on her own. As a young mother with kids, she did what she had to do to make sure she and her children would survive. We all would've done the same." Um... NO! I'd never partake in the brutal and inhumane practice of owning slaves. But good to know slavery is such an easy decision for her, though. Even worse, the guide (a blonde, nondescript "all-American" woman) kept mentioning to the group how she would have had it so much worse back in those days than the slaves because "technically, I'm a Cajun, and we were despised even more than slaves! My life would've been so hard!"The audacity! I and the others in the group that had any sense were speechless. It (almost) pains me to write this review because the people who worked here that we encountered were so "nice" and pleasant. But this is 2018, and being nice but highly ignorant doesn't cut it. If you're someone that enjoys revisionist history to make yourself feel better, waste your money here. Otherwise, go somewhere else.

I wanted my 1500th review to be something special, so I chose Evergreen Plantation for this milestone. I don't even know where to start with this review, so I am going to apologize right now if I'm all over the map.My dad and I had been wanting to do the Evergreen Plantation tour for ages because a long long time ago we were related to one of the former owners. Yes, yours truly had a distant relative that owned this plantation in the 1900's and he was even the one who named it 'Evergreen'. Someone fetch me a hoop skirt and a mint julep, ASAP! Oh wait, my relative lost the plantation during the depression and now our family has no claim to the property. Womp. Never mind, '86 the julep. Anyway, we finally decided to hit the road and check out the former family estate.You start out at the visitor center, pay your $20 and sign the guestbook. Tip: if you sign the guestbook you get all your future tours for free. You meet your guide and follow him to the main house where the tour begins. Our guide was Kevin and he was fantastic! First of all, we were here on a hot July day and Kevin was good about keeping us in shady areas so that we didn't bake in the hot Louisiana sun. We started off in the back of the house with a brief history, we checked out the kitchen that is separate from the house and then we moved to the front of the house and eventually inside. Kevin made history come alive mixing the history of Evergreen with the history of New Orleans. A lot of things I knew, but a lot of things I didn't, so I was excited about the history lesson!The front of the house was incredible with the two staircases going up. Of course, this property has been used frequently in movies and it was nice to learn about the history of it all. There was so much grass in front of the place I wanted to take my shoes off and run barefoot around the expansive lawn, but I was trying to keep things professional, so I resisted the urge.Once inside, we peeked into the different rooms and Kevin told us the family history of all the people who have owned Evergreen. It turns out, Alfred Songy, added a lot of neat things around the house and his family was raised there. He lost the house because there was a terrible flood in 1927, disease wiped out the crops and that darn depression threw a monkey wrench into Alfred's lifestyle and the bank foreclosed on the place in 1930. He was allowed to finish his days there and the house was bought and restored in 1944.Finally, Kevin took us to see the slave cabins. This was pretty intense, just knowing the history of this space and imagining was life was like for the people who inhabited these cabins. Kevin told us a brief history of some of the slaves and we got to look into one of the cabins, which was really jarring for me. The history of it just hit me really hard.Trivia: Django Unchained and the new Roots mini-series were filmed on this property. Kevin told us some stories about how movie magic transformed the property into the film makers vision and how things were added and changed (not permanently) to add to the effects of the movies.This tour was fantastic and I think it's a "must" for locals and tourists alike- it's is an hour and a half and it is really interesting and the time goes really fast. The tour guide gives a lot of time so that people can take pictures and ask questions and it was interesting to learn some history about the nation's past and Louisiana's past. Thank you again to Kevin for a fantastic tour and a lot of great memories.

We had a wonderful experience here on our tour with Robin. She is warm, enthusiastic, well-informed, and dedicated to historical research that helps her share the authentic story of the home and the heritage of its owners and slaves. The property itself is beautiful and the slave quarters are a must see! I'm so happy we stopped by.

Did this as a 90 minute option on our all day River Road tour, and was out highlight of our tour. Our tour guide, Desiree, was a phenomenal wealth of information, even sharing pictures and stories of people that she personally knew who had lived there. She made it entertaining for our 12 & 14 year olds, as well as making you challenge what you thought you knew. The walk to houses down the back was an awesome reveal, along with the sing along on the way back and the group reenactments - highly recommended.....but only if you can get Desiree!