The Leche Legacy of Land

by Ann Gilbert

Historic preservation groups have their eye on a 70-year-old rustic lodge sitting on a bend in the Tchefuncte River, surrounded by forest and swamp. Few St. Tammany residents even know of the existence of the home made famous because of its ties to Richard W. Leche, the first Louisiana governor to be sent to prison. (He was later pardoned by President Harry S. Truman and reinstated to the bar by the Louisiana State Supreme Court.)

Leche began acquiring land on the Tchefuncte River (some 1,200 acres, at the cost of about $20,000 and on a $7,500 annual salary) soon after he was elected governor in 1936. In a memoir written for the St. Tammany Historical Society, Mrs. Leche recalls seeing the wooded property for the first time: “The warm sunlight filtered down through the thick growth of pines, which gave off the most delicious aroma—pungent and strong and almost caressing. I stood there thinking—‘This is forest primeval, and I would like to live in the midst of its beauty and quiet and strength forever.’”

The Leches built a lodge reminiscent of those erected by railroad barons, with a 40-foot great room, 30-foot dining room, pegged heart-of-pine floors, pecky cypress walls and impressively beamed ceilings. Leon C. Weiss, of Weiss, Dreyfous and Seiferth in New Orleans, was the architect. Dick Leche Jr., who was seven years old when the house was completed, says his father “drew the basic plan of the house and then gave it to Weiss. The entrance hall was originally the living room, and Dad went back to his drawings and, as he said, ‘hung a big room on the end.’ The big living room was an afterthought.”

Leche was accused of using brick from state projects to build his home. To refute that charge, he dug a hole on his property, revealing bricks from an old brickyard buried in the earth. Mrs. Leche wrote of mounds of bricks in the yard when they bought the property. Some of the mounds were just incorporated into the landscape scheme with paths around them. Many bricks still push up through the lawn.

Charlie Crockett, the 88-year-old caretaker of the property, remembers seeing prisoners in their striped uniforms dig the basement for the lodge and clean out the huge pit where the clay had been dug for the bricks manufactured on the site in earlier decades. Leche used water from an artesian well to fill the nine-acre lake and then stocked it with fish. There were landscaped islands in the lake. Trucks of stone and rock came from Tennessee and Arkansas, says Crockett. “My brother Oliver drove one of those trucks.” A stone flue, three feet wide and several yards in length, carried water from the well to the lake, where a flagstone terrace provided a grand view. Another waterfall tumbled over a rocky dam at the narrow end of the lake.

The exterior of the house is of hand-hewn cypress shingles and brick. The whimsical cutouts in the siding on the carriage house make one think Bavaria, although the buildings have been described as English Country Manor. The expansive front lawn had a circular drive lined with tall, black iron lampposts similar to those used in New Orleans at the time. Before Katrina knocked many of them down, the effect at night was beautiful, present owner Marilyn Pailet says.

While seeing the house recently as Marilyn’s guest, Covington architect Arthur Middleton, said, “You couldn’t build this today. The materials are not available.” Middleton confessed he didn’t know the house still existed, and he was impressed with Marilyn’s conservation of the home. He pointed out how some would want to “tear down that old house.” As heir to the historic home, Marilyn made a decision early on not to destroy its distinct features. She has not substantially altered the structure since her parents bought it from the Leches in 1946. Pleased that historic groups are interested, she says, “I don’t want to see the land developed.” Most of the original estate was sold to developers decades ago, and Marilyn now lives on 175 acres.
Entering the Leche great room takes one’s breath away with its awesome size; the warm, rich woods; and the light entering from towering 15-over-15-pane windows. Oxen yokes and wagon wheels function as light fixtures hanging down from the 22-foot ceiling. A beam some 12 inches square serves as the mantel for the 6-foot-wide fireplace. “We removed the wrought iron arm that held pots,” says Marilyn, “and put up a screen because the fires were so large.”

Opposite the hearth is an alcove with a couch. A narrow loft lined with bookcases extends almost the width of the room. Leche was well read, a student of history, especially political history, and had a large collection of books. The five bedrooms on the second floor can be accessed from the loft. 

“What a masculine room!” Middleton said of the dining room, which bears the same woodsy, lodge feel with cypress paneling, and has a large corner fireplace with another huge rustic beam as the mantel. Two doors open to flagstone terraces across the back of the house. The kitchen has steel cabinets, a screened porch and a servants’ entrance. Walking down into the cellar, Middleton described the construction as being “of commercial standards.” Marilyn said the house has 13-inch walls.

Marilyn noted a room near the master bedroom with so many outlets she thought it might have been used as an office. (Leche is said to have called the new governor’s mansion built by Huey Long a museum, and he often ran the state long distance from his office in the lodge or at the massive desk in a room in the splendid barn on the Tchefuncte estate.) This office and the master suite have fireplaces that share a chimney with the dining room. A second-floor sleeping porch—which got a lot of use by the Pailet children, their cousins and friends—has views of the river.

Today, one might call the Leche lodge a museum, because many artifacts of the former governor remained in his old home when they moved to smaller quarters. The Leches left much of their furniture after the sale, including the huge desk in the barn, which Marilyn moved into the great room. They also left a heavy, custom-designed hickory dining table, chairs, assorted teacarts and all of his mounted animal trophies hanging on the walls in the great room. “Mama hated that bear rug in front of the fireplace,” Marilyn says.

Life At The Leche Lodge  

Charlie Crockett grew up nearby. He recalls the Leches had six people to help run the estate, including a cook, housekeeper, gardener, stableman and two chauffeurs. They had a Cadillac and a Packard. Dick says the Packard was a gift of the Louisiana State Democratic Committee. “It was the most luxurious car we ever had. There was a window in the back of the front seat that could be raised if you did not want the driver or others to hear a conversation. It also had a one-piece windshield, which was not common in those days.”

Leche became a rancher, selling timber rights and clearing land, as he amassed herds of Hereford cattle and Russian Karakul sheep, and raised dogs, turkeys and chickens. (As governor, he continued Long’s expansion of the LSU campus by building an agricultural coliseum, larger than Madison Square Garden, where rodeos were held. In his book “Louisiana Hayride,” author Harnett Kane writes that Leche “luxuriated in the Wild West atmosphere and whooped and howled at the bronco busting.” State employees were strongly urged to attend the rodeos and purchase their own western hats, he said.)

The governor was also somewhat of a horticulturist, raising camellias, especially new varieties. The couple became friends with other camellia fanciers and enjoyed attending shows throughout the South, wrote Mrs. Leche.

Dick told this writer that the manager of the herds, a Scotsman named James McLachlan, “was like a member of the family and lived in the house with us. On the front of the house upstairs are two small bedrooms that share a connecting bath. One room was mine and the other his. “Mr. Mac” had a heart attack and died the night before my father returned from the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary in June 1945.”

Mrs. Leche, whose first name was Elton, was “annoyed” when city visitors asked what she did all day. “Helping to run a farm and a nursery, keep house, manage a budget, raise a young son—during a war—with all the attendant problems, was a fulltime job for me, even with help. Many a night I stayed up filling out forms and thinking up names for the new calves to send to the American Hereford Association.” On Saturdays, she “listened to the Texaco Opera on radio, and caught up on mending, letter writing and record keeping.” She doesn’t mention in her short memoir that she managed alone when Leche was in prison.

Leche’s son Charles remembers his Dad as “a jovial and fun-loving man, who loved to tell stories and tell jokes.” The politician had a tender side. Mrs. Leche recalled that one day before he left, he pulled the car around for her when she was on the way to the doctor. She was expecting their second child 17 years after Dick Jr. had been born. As she climbed into the seat, she found a spray of white azaleas attached to the steering wheel.

Charles says his parents were very close. “They were devoted to one another. When Dad died in 1965 at the age of 66, she was essentially lost for the rest of her life. I basically had to take care of her. She lived to be 96.” But, he adds with a grin, “She was a strong lady, and strong willed.”

Bayou Gardens

After his release from prison, Leche sold the 1,200 acres, interrupting Mrs. Leche’s dream to live forever in the Tchefuncte pine forest. He purchased the Pailets’ home on 112 acres on Bayou Lacombe in January 1946. It was a swap with cash. Leche received $175,000 plus the Pailet home for his Tchefuncte estate. The contract gave Leche nine months to move dozens of camellias and azaleas and a plantation bell.  

Within three years, the ex-governor had transformed a fourth of his new estate into Bayou Gardens, with visions of its becoming another Bellingrath Gardens. Leche’s wife writes, “He decided that the grounds could become a show garden, and we worked hard to bring this about. We felt it would benefit both the small town of Lacombe and the parish as well, which it did.” In January 1950, his tourist attraction brought in 450 visitors, according to an article by Margaret Dixon in the Morning Advocate.  

The sweeping lawns contrasted with miles of paths under arching oaks and tall pines. In the spring, hundreds of camellias and azaleas splashed color across the expanses of green.
When summer approached, crepe myrtles and hydrangeas bloomed. Urns and boxwood hedges of japonica lent a formal air to some spaces. Stone patios with rustic furniture offered pleasant views of the meandering bayou and invited visitors to linger. Dancing waters in fountains teased the ears.

Mallards from Avery Island—Leche was friends with founder Edward Avery McIlhenny—called the garden pond home. The former governor was an expert duck caller and seemed to have the birds well trained. Dixon wrote, “The once wild birds would fly in, land on the lake and swim to his feet.” He cared for his ducks. Leche regretted losing his first batch of hatchlings to turtles and planned to build special pens so the young birds could defend themselves from predators, he told Dixon.

Most of the visitors had no idea the lovely gardens had been designed by a former Louisiana governor. Leche told Dixon, “Most of them think I am the head gardener, and I am.”  
From his camellia nursery, Leche shipped rare varieties to all parts of the world. It served a double purpose, wrote Mrs. Leche, supplying the gardens and producing income.   

The collections housed in the barn provided an extra-added attraction at the gardens. “We cleaned and painted the barn and turned it into a museum of sorts,” writes Mrs. Leche. The couple exhibited antique Louisiana furniture and iron pots and skillets, Indian relics, mementoes of the Civil War, canoes dug out of giant cypress trees, models of boats used on Louisiana waterways and lakes, old buggies, numerous plantation bells, and weapons including swords, guns and knives. Friends loaned or gave many artifacts for display, in addition to the Leches’ personal collections.

The gift shop offered a variety of items handcrafted by Louisiana artisans. Mrs. Leche seems to have been especially fond of the baskets woven by Mathilda Johnson, reportedly the last Choctaw woman of Lacombe to weave the palmetto straw.

Charles Leche recalls living at the place until he was about 10. “I could roam at will in the woods. I was thrilled to get a BB gun, but Dad cautioned me not to shoot songbirds, just game birds. He was circumspect about hunting. It was inculcated into me that we don’t shoot what we don’t eat. I loved to go hunting with him in later years, but we could never shoot over the limit. He said if we exceeded the limit, there wouldn’t be enough for others. He was a lover of wildlife and pushed conservation laws through for the state.”

Leche sold the place in 1957 to the Redemptorists, a Catholic order of priests, who opened a college prep seminary. One might wonder who brought buyer and seller together. The story goes that the priest, while out scouting for property, had a flat tire near the gardens and received assistance from Leche. The deal was sealed. The family moved back to New Orleans, where Leche became a corporate attorney for T.L. James and legislative lobbyist for Associated General Contractors, according to his son Charles.  

In 1998, the Redemptorists sold the property to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which opened its Southeast Louisiana Regional Office in the classroom/dormitory building. Early next year, a visitor center/museum will open in the former chapel, with its soaring ceiling, stained glass, rich wood finishing and polished terrazzo floors. USFWS investigated placing the Pailet/Leche home on the National Register, but was told it didn’t qualify. 

Supervisory Park Ranger Byron Fortier says, “We are trying to bring back some of the trails.” Wooden steps in the garden lead down to a natural spring in a rocky grotto-like space. Fifty-year-old camellias and azaleas continue to bloom, and the urns from Bayou Gardens still grace the property.

Governor Leche certainly left his footprints on the shores of Bayou Lacombe and the Tchefuncte River.

Leche’s Political Career

A court of appeals judge in New Orleans, Leche’s rise in state politics began when Huey Long selected him to be secretary to the Long-machine governor, O.K. Allen, in 1932. Long had been elected to the U.S. Senate. It is said Leche sent Long regular reports of activity in the statehouse.

Long was assassinated in 1935, and 38-year-old Leche was tapped to run for governor in 1936 on the Long-machine ticket. Leche was forced to resign in 1939 because of allegations of corruption. The official federal charge was mail fraud. “The trial was held in Alexandria. Why, I don’t know,” retired Southeastern Louisiana University history professor C. Howard Nichols told this writer.

Leche was given a 10-year sentence, but served less than four years. He was reinstated to the bar by the Louisiana Supreme Court and pardoned by President Harry S. Truman.