French House, The
About this property
The Roger Hadfield Ogden Honors College is an academic community at Louisiana State University. Housed in the heritage-listed French House, it was founded in 1992 as the LSU Honors College, and renamed in December 2014. The college provides its students with a curriculum of seminar classes, mentoring relationships with faculty, and opportunities for undergraduate research, culminating in the Honors Thesis. Honors education at LSU began in 1967 when professors Charles Bigger and Edward Henderson coordinated and developed a series of team-taught collaborative courses that remain the academic core of the Honors curriculum at LSU. In 1992, the LSU Board of Supervisors approved the transformation of the honors program at the university into the LSU Honors College. Bill Seay served as the college's first and only dean until 2003 when Nancy Clark assumed the role. The third and current dean is Dr. Jonathan H. Earle, who joined the university in 2014. The Honors College was initially located in the Old President's House on Highland Road. Comprising the French House, the Laville Honors House residence hall, and the 459 Dining Commons, this complete "campus within a campus" distinguishes the Ogden Honors College as one of the few honors institutions in the country with a dedicated campus specifically for the honors student body. In December 2014, LSU announced that they had received a $12 million investment from alumnus Roger Ogden, the largest unrestricted endowed gift in LSU history. Shortly after, the LSU Board of Supervisors approved the renaming of the LSU Honors College in honor of Ogden's late father and son. In 1999, the Honors College moved into the French House, Renaissance-style chateau originally constructed as a center for intensive study of the French language, literature, and culture. The French House was dedicated on April 15, 1935, when French Ambassador André de Laboulaye traveled to Louisiana to celebrate LSU's Diamond Jubilee. The French ambassador laid the structure's cornerstone, which included a piece of wood from the original Fort de la Boulaye, the first French settlement in Louisiana. Ambassador François de Laboulaye, André de Laboulaye's son, rededicated the building on April 3, 1981. The French House remains the only non-Quadrangle LSU structure on the National Register of Historic Places. A long-anticipated $5 million renovation of the interior of the French House began in December 2014, funded through capital outlay funds allocated by former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. Renovations by Baton Rouge architecture firm Tipton Associates, APAC, were completed in 2016. The 3 acres (1.2 ha) area was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 13, 1982.
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Questions about this property
When was French House, The listed on the National Register?
French House, The was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 13, 1982.
What type of historic resource is French House, The?
French House, The is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for French House, The?
The period of significance for French House, The is recorded as the industrial era.
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