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Desire Hebert's Home Bank An excerpt from the book "LOUISIANA HOMES, IF WALLS COULD TALK" by Nola Mae Ross This Queen Anne Cottage was built for a French Acadian owner but it shows a definite “northern influence”. And this could be because the Desire Hebert house was built during the era when Jabez Bunting Watkins, the great financier/promoter, brought thousands of northern and midwesterner settlers to this area. Also at that time, the home pattern books by Sears were spreading the popularity of the Queen Anne houses. The magazine, THE AMERICAN ARCHITECT AND BUILDING NEWS also made them more popular. And with the coming of the railroad into the south pre-cut housing materials, such as detailed spindle work for gables and delicate porch and column trims became available. The
Desire Hebert house in Lake Arthur has been altered through the years and a
picture of the first structure was not available. This house also went through a tragic time while unoccupied,
when vandals trashed the inside. The
present owner, Doug Kershaw, is restoring this beautiful old home to its turn of
the century form. Desire Hebert, first owner of this home is the colorful ancestor of many area citizens. He was born in 1837, at the famous Green House in Lowry, south of Lake Arthur, long before there were banks in Southwest Louisiana. As he grew up he became famous as a “home banker” because he kept a footlocker in his room stashed with cash. People would come to his house to borrow money, with interest, of course. And for many years, even after his death in 1930, Desire’s home in Lake Arthur was still called “Desire’s Bank”. Desire Hebert was the son of Alexander and Clarisse Hebert who had acquired 6000 acres of land in the Lowry area in 1836. They were listed in the census as “grazers” because they ran thousands of heads of cattle across the prairies of Southwest Louisiana. Their original house at Lowry, where Desire was born, known as the Green House is also being currently restored by the Lacassane Company. It predates Desire Hebert’s home in Lake Arthur and is one of the oldest in Southwest. Since
this first Hebert house where Desire grew up was a crossing point for cattle
drives moving from Texas to New Orleans along the Lafitte Cut-Off, it was in an
ideal location for the young Desire to start loaning money to the cattle drovers
as they stopped overnight. He
kept a footlocker in his bedroom stashed with money.
The borrowers would repay him after they’d sold their cattle and were
on their way back home There
are many stories told about Desire’s banking business, which he also carried
on after he moved his home to Lake Arthur.
One time a drover cheated him and so Desire and his slave named Bart rode
to Texas. They found the cheater and
“shot him stone cold dead.” Desire
Hebert, so the story goes, “being a man of property and integrity, was not
prosecuted.” Desire Hebert served in the 7th Cavalry during the Civil War and when he returned home his father had died so he sold the large Vacherie (cattle ranch) to Captain Lowry and a group of Hoosier investors and moved to Lake Arthur. Want
to read more ? Why not purchase a copy of the book?
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