Please proceed to the gravel path on the right side of the mansion’s ruins, then follow the stone walkway around to the left into the Ruins Garden, where the Villa once stood.
Afton Villa’s location was historically significant during the Civil War and the battle to gain control of the Mississippi River. The Siege of Port Hudson occurred just southeast of Saint Francisville and represented the longest siege in American history. Union soldiers regularly came and went at Afton but never abused the property – on one occasion when Susan Barrow was alone with her two children, she courageously offered the home’s keys, but the soldiers took only horses as contraband. The Civil War did, however, end most of the gaiety and happiness which described the Barrow’s life Afton. In 1876, two years after David Barrow’s death, Susan sold Afton to Judge Rufus Howell.
Other prior Afton Villa owners after Susan Barrow included A. Smith Bowman (ancestor of the Bowman family, who became Virginia whiskey pioneers), Dr. and Mrs. Robert Lewis (1915-1945), and Dorothy Mills Noble (who passed ownership to her daughter, Adelea, and her husband before 1963).
In 1963 tragedy struck Afton and its owners, Wallace and Adelea (Dot) Percy. The Percy’s had moved the original kitchen from the basement of the back wing of the house to the stair hall in the main part of the mansion. One night in the early morning hours, a fire began in the kitchen. Summoned, the St. Francisville fire department came quickly and was able to rescue the Percy’s huddled helplessly under the live oak in front of the house. Some of the furniture on the main floor was brought out and saved. Thinking the fire had been extinguished, the firemen promised the Percy’s that they would return in the morning to clean up debris. But the fire had spread unseen between the walls of the Gothic villa. Just as the fire truck reached the front gates, the house suddenly exploded. Down came the three-story towers, the magnificent spiral stairway, the hand-carved cypress woodwork, and the ballroom, crumbling and consumed in fiery brilliance. The Baton Rouge Morning Advocate in its front-page story, sadly reporting the destruction of this famous Louisiana landmark, had as its headline “What a beautiful tragedy!” quoting the words Dot Percy uttered as she watched in anguish the demise of her beloved home.
In 1979, seven years after the Trimbles acquired Afton Villa, work began on the ruins garden. After purchasing Afton Villa, on a visit to England, Bud and Genevieve visited Sissinghurst, Vita Sackville-West’s garden created out of the ruins of a sixteenth-century castle. In discussions with LSU Landscape Architecture faculty member Dr. Neil Odenwald, he remarked that Afton Villa has genuine ruins of its own. With that inspiration, clean-up began of the rubble, saving all remaining wall fragments.
Please follow the stone walkway down the steps, turning right when you reach the lower level of the ruins garden and walk to the large table.