Manresa House of Retreats

The main building has been rebuilt once and reused ever since. The college that held its first class in 1834 burned in 1842 and went up again on the same foundation in Greek Revival style; that building is on the National Register, listed January 31, 1985. St. Mary's College closed in 1928 for low enrollment. Accounts of what came next differ: the retreat house is dated to a founding in 1922 by Étienne Caire, and to the Jesuits' arrival in 1931. Either way it still gives retreats on the old campus.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Whitney Plantation — 11 mi
  A museum on a former sugar plantation along the River Road that tells its story through the people who were enslaved there, with memorials to 107,000 enslaved Louisianans and 2,200 children.
• E. D. White Historic Site — 13 mi
  A National Historic Landmark house of about 1790 on Bayou Lafourche, built by enslaved people and home to two Whites, a governor and a Chief Justice, with an exhibit on the bayou's history.
• Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center — 14 mi
  A Jean Lafitte National Historical Park center on Bayou Lafourche with Acadian and bayou-life exhibits, a 200-seat theater and ranger-guided boat tours to the E. D. White house.
• Laurel Valley Village — 14 mi
  A sugar plantation's workers' village south of Thibodaux, with cabins of about 1845, shotgun houses, a store and cemetery, and the 1887 strike and massacre in the parish around it.

More markers nearby

• Cabahanoce Plantation — 0.9 mi
• Young Pilgrim Baptist Church — 1.0 mi
• Convent — 1.3 mi
• Judge Poché Plantation House Historical Marker — 1.4 mi