Boucvalt House

Around 1860 Opelousas was the commercial center of the region, bigger than Lafayette, and its Main Street cottages looked the part: a steep gable roof with the ridge parallel to the street, one central chimney warming a fireplace in each main room, and a porch with transom doors and windows that start at the floor. Rooms added to the back about 1900, a bathroom on one side and a kitchen on the other, were set for balance, a symmetry usually read as success. Dr. Roy Boucvalt bought the house in 1988 and later donated it to Vermilionville.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Vermilionville — steps away
  A living-history village of about 23 acres on Bayou Vermilion in Lafayette, opened in 1990 to interpret the Native peoples, Acadians, Creoles and people of African descent of the Attakapas region.
• Cypress Island Preserve at Lake Martin — 5.7 mi
  Nearly 10,000 acres of bottomland hardwood and cypress-tupelo swamp at the south end of Lake Martin, owned by The Nature Conservancy, with a boardwalk and a rookery of egrets, spoonbills and alligators.
• Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site — 12 mi
  A bayou-side state site on former Attakapas hunting ground, with a raised Creole cottage of about 1815, a reproduction 1800 farmstead and its slave quarters, and the story behind Longfellow's Evangeline.
• St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church — 12 mi
  The Mother Church of the Acadians, founded in 1765 on St. Martin Square in St. Martinville, with a late 1870s Lourdes grotto and, a block away, the Evangeline Oak on Bayou Teche.

More markers nearby

• Acadian House (Maison Acadienne) — steps away
• The Presbytery — steps away
• Mouton Kitchen (La Cuisine de Maison Mouton) — steps away
• Buller House — steps away