Shell Chemical Co., owner of the Ashland-Belle Helene Plantation in Geismar, undertook a major restoration of the building about a decade ago. Now the company wants to remove the property’s protective covering as a historic site, saying it does not intend to work on the historic site but wants to move into the buffer zone around it.

In the coming weeks, the Ascension City Council will have the final say.

Described on the National Register of Historic Places nomination form as an “outstanding example” of a peripteral plantation house, the building at 3251 La. was built by Duncan Kenner in 1841. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

At a meeting of the building control authority, Kevin Poché, Shell’s environmental manager, said the company was planning a major expansion and needed “working space that will not exceed the 150-meter-wide buffer zone by much, but certainly a little.”

“We still have a strict commitment to preserve the historic framework of the area… We have spent millions restoring the building and it is our intention to preserve the property,” he added. “Removing the historic cover would allow us to get a little closer than we otherwise would if it were still there.”

When Shell purchased the property, the purchase agreement stipulated that the company must preserve the physical structure and facade of the building. Shell went a step further in 2015 and completed a comprehensive restoration of the interior and exterior to enable the building to be used for meetings and corporate events.

Jim Blanchard, an architectural archivist and artist who advised on the 2015 upgrades, told the commission he thought Shell should provide more details.

“I think that’s a little bit too vague. I’m for development and everything they need,” he said. “… They just need to show more of what they actually want to do there.”

Poché responded that the company had no intention of building a production facility near the site, adding that Shell had internal rules about what the company could do in the area.

Natalie Gunnell, a spokeswoman for Shell, stressed by email that the company does not want to operate on the historic site.

“Shell wants to be a good neighbor and will continue to engage respectfully with the local community in which we work and live,” she wrote.

The planning commission voted 3 to 2 against the recommendation to remove the development; however, the final decision will be made by the municipal council.

Site History

In an addendum to the National Register nomination form, State Historic Preservation Officer Robert B. DeBlieux wrote that the building was significant primarily for its gallery around the house and the parapet that conceals the hipped roof.

“The Peripteral style is a regionally distinctive form of Greek Revival, found especially in the Deep South,” he explained. “It is believed to have evolved from the Creole plantation houses with galleries of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Of course, the phenomenon itself is of national importance, as it forms an essential part of the overall picture of the American Greek Revival.”

The form, written by Douglas Hayward, stated that its importance was enhanced by Kenner’s ownership.

Kenner enslaved 473 people in 1860, worth the equivalent of more than $16 million (in 2024), and served as a state representative and delegate to the Provisional Congress of the Confederacy.

Although Union forces captured the plantation during the Civil War, Hayward wrote that Kenner regained ownership of the property and “built up an estate which was even larger and more valuable at the time of his death than it had been before the war.”

After Kenner’s death, John Reuss bought the plantation and renamed it Belle Helene in honor of his granddaughter.

Although Hayward focused on the house, he also chose the surrounding land because it “includes a park in which the mansion is situated.”

“This park includes the front lawn and the wooded land to the rear and sides… once intended for the recreation of the gentlemen,” he wrote. “For example, there was a race track among the oaks behind the house. This, however, has disappeared.”