Preservation Center to protect Belle Oak home

{Editor’s Note: Preservation in Print magazine ran this article in its November edition and is reprinted here by permission.}
By Danielle Del Sol, Preservation in Print Editor
Dan Michel is a self-described “crazy preservationist.” But that’s not why he decided to place a historic preservation easement on his Marksville home, and donate its control to the Preservation Resource Center (PRC) of New Orleans.
Michel wanted to protect the home, Belle Oak, that his great-grandparents built in 1872, and that his family has owned since.
“I never married or had children,” Michel said recently. “My brother has two daughters, but they have no interest in an old house. My sister lives in Brandon, Miss., and she has five children, but Marksville means nothing to them; they grew up in Mississippi. So my biggest problem was: What will happen to my home when I die?”
The Alfred H. Bordelon House, also known as Belle Oak, is one of only two homes listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Marksville.
The 1 1/2-story home, described by the National Park Service as a transitional Greek Revival-Italianate-Stick style galleried cottage, is located in the town’s historic residential core -- just one block from the parish courthouse and Marksville City Hall.
The home’s proportionality is so fine, Michel said, that famous Southern architect A. Hays Town once visited the home to record its measurements.
protect in perpetuity
After learning about PRC’s preservation easement program, which protects properties to ensure their optimal condition in perpetuity, Michel called PRC easement director Leah Tubbs. PRC holds 122 historic preservation easements across Louisiana.
The assurance that his family home’s continued existence and good condition could be monitored after he was gone soothed Michel, so he immediately got to work, with his attorney in Marksville, Benjamin Luke, to submit the easement to PRC.
Amazingly, Michel declined the generous tax credits that can come with the property easement program. His sole motive was protecting his family’s home. With that accomplished, Michel said, he can focus his time on the home’s continued maintenance -- which is no small task, he added.
To say he knows every square inch of the building is no exaggeration.
Michel grew up in the house, and has spent most his life there, save for almost two “very fun” decades in New Orleans, and time studying at LSU. Michel worked for the USDA for years, and traveled the state and region extensively during his career.
Its simple elegance is the root of the home’s beauty, he says. The 60-foot-long front porch, partitioned with Greek balustrades, is most people’s favorite place to relax at the home, Michel said.
The five-bay building is three rooms wide, two rooms deep, and has most of its original features intact, including long leaf pine floors and ceilings, eight-foot-tall windows, porcelain doorknobs and original locks and hinges, fireplace mantels, and even a hand-painted ceiling mural in the parlor that has Christian and Native American symbols and writing: “Welcome to my home of love, happiness and peace.”
The home is furnished with antiques significant to Michel’s family, including a piano that his aunt used to give piano lessons to black and white children — she was the first white woman to offer music lessons to black students in the city, he said.
Michel is no stranger to the protection of historic properties. He served for years as a board member of the Louisiana Landmarks Society, and in 1996 he won the organization’s most prestigious honor, the Harriet T. Kane award, for his service.
That passion no doubt came from the history that has literally always surrounded him. Now his family’s home will be forever protected by PRC.
“I pray that when I go, whoever buys this home will love it,” he said.

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