This storied Creole-Acadian cottage in the heart of downtown Breaux Bridge has seen a lot of life pass through its halls.
It was built in 1811 as the home of Sylvestre and Marie Broussard, the daughter of Breaux Bridge’s founder, Firmin Breaux. The Broussards raised five children on the bank of the bayou. More than 100 years later, the property was transformed into a boarding house — with the addition of a long hall of suites, and a dining room that boasts a 17 and a half foot old-growth cypress table.
In the 1980s, MaryLynn Chauffe came along. The house was in dire need of saving. As a passionate preservationist, active civic leader and founding member of the Friends of Lake Martin, she undertook a historically sensitive restoration. Her work turned it into a showpiece of local culture and history, sheltering tourists, bridal couples and traveling musicians.
Chauffe died in 2022. Her daughter, Debora Savoy, has been working with the Cheryl Cockrell Estate Sales team for weeks now to gather decades of glassware, antique furniture, old Mardi Gras costumes, cypress lamps, rope beds, black pots and thousands of other items from Chauffe’s estate of multiple historic properties in the Breaux Bridge area.
The cottage will host a large estate sale from Nov. 20-22. Apart from a few pieces the family is holding onto, everything is available — including that enormous cypress table, which was built inside the dining room and seats 18. And they have confirmed that it can be removed from the room…