Couret House

Couret House was named for Clemance Bernard Couret, the granddaughter of the original owner. This French Creole house has two histories. First, the top portion was originally built close to the Vermilion River near Pont des Mouton Road. It was built by Jean Louis Bernard around the year 1790. The single-story building was a French Creole style house with colombage and bousillage wall construction. It featured deep galleries at both the front and rear, similar to the Alexandre Latiolais house featured in this book on page 7. The second history begins around 1832 when Jean Louis’ son, Gerazin Bernard, inherited the building and the surrounding farmland. He moved the building to its present location and elevated it to the second story by constructing a masonry first floor beneath it. This is what is known as the Louisiana Raised Creole Cottage. The walls of the first floor are twelve to eighteen inches thick briquette-entrepoteaux, which means brick between post, construction. Briquette-entrepoteaux, an alternative to the colombage and bousillage method of wall construction, was commonly used by early Acadians who had access to a brick kiln. Both the raised cottage concept and the thick masonry walls at the bottom floor are architectural elements adapted by early French Acadian settlers to keep floodwaters out of the main living space and to allow the interior to remain cooler in the summer and warm winter.