The landscape surrounding Mrs. Robert Earle Billeaud’s 50-year-old home is a portrait of classical Southern beauty as it rests atop a hill on the banks of the Vermillion bayou. Spanish moss drips from the willow oaks, vitex and crepe myrtles that surround the house — the magnificent 300-year-old oak that rests in her backyard sets the traditional tone of the manicured landscape.

 

Colorful annuals adorn the façade of the home; the horseshoe drive is lined with bright petunias, snapdragons, pansies and ornamental cabbage. The established landscape ranges from evergreen sago palms and azaleas to sasanquas, Indian Hawthorn and pittosporum. Tropical plants add diversity to the setting, including philodendron, variegated gingers, ferns and palms. While Lue Svendson designed the original plans, the landscape is the careful cultivation of Mrs. Billeaud’s daughter, Lorraine Broussard of Billeaud Horticulture, whose passion has always been working in her mother’s gardens.

 

A terra cotta fountain serves as the focal point of Mrs. Billeaud’s sprawling, multi-leveled back porch, which is embellished by a variety of large, lush container plantings. Algerian ivy drapes down onto the flagstone and brick patio, creating a tranquil space to take in a spectacular panoramic view of the Vermillion.

 

Click on each picture below for a full view.

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