Courtesy of Holly & Smith Architects.
Rendering of the restored Freyhan building.
At the western end of Prosperity Street in St. Francisville’s historic district, a visit to the old Julius Freyhan School building reveals something a lot of people had given up on ever seeing: orange construction fencing. Seventy-four years after the circa 1907 building closed to students and almost fifty years since efforts to revitalize it commenced, the restoration of the Freyhan School is finally underway. In January, contractor Cangelosi Ward commenced a year-long, $4.2 million rehabilitation project that, when completed, will transform the historic structure into a cultural and conference center and a museum of early education for West Feliciana Parish.
A school has stood on the Prosperity Street site since 1905, the year after prosperous Jewish merchant and local civic leader Julius Freyhan died, leaving $8,000 to build St. Francisville’s first public school. It was a three-story brick building, the upper floors of which commanded superb views of the Mississippi. When the original building burned in 1907, a near-identical replacement was rebuilt, and it continued to serve as a school until 1950. By 1975, with the original building deteriorating, a group of former students including Billie Magee, Fran McVea, and Mott Plettinger launched a campaign to restore the Freyhan School, and the non-profit Freyhan Foundation was born. By 2005, Anne Bennett had joined the Foundation, and promptly got the building included on the Louisiana Trust for Historic Preservation’s Most Endangered Places list. In 2007 while serving as board chair, Bennett was diagnosed with cancer. On her deathbed, she extracted a promise from her friend, Nancy Vinci, to see the renovation to completion. In the years since, Vinci has made the Freyhan restoration project her life’s work, heading tireless efforts by the all-volunteer board to secure state capital outlay funding, and establishing the annual Walker Percy Weekend literary festival as a fund-raising vehicle to support the restoration fund. In the ten years of its existence, the Walker Percy Weekend has contributed more than $250,000 towards the effort, but it wasn’t until 2019 when, after years of lobbying, then-Governor John Bel Edwards announced the allocation of $4.3 million in capital outlay funding to rehabilitate the Freyhan School, that this fifty-year-long dream began to feel like a reality.
That reality will take most of 2024 to be fully realized. According to current Freyhan Foundation Board President Betsy Levasseur, the restoration will bring the building new electrical, plumbing, roofing, and HVAC systems, while preserving as many of the original structure’s tall windows, magnificent woodwork, and elegant, top-floor auditorium—as possible. When complete, the Freyhan School will contain meeting spaces, breakout rooms, artist’s studios, a 150-seat performance theatre, and a museum interpreting the history of public education in West Feliciana Parish. Hollis Milton, Superintendant of the West Feliciana Parish School Board, which owns the building, acknowledged the critical role that the Freyhan Foundation has played in securing the funds required to restore the historic landmark. “We have enjoyed our partnership with the Freyhan Foundation and look forward to working with them, not only to restore the building, but also to build a vision for how the facility can serve our community,” he said. Levasseur concurred, noting plans for a future cooperative endeavor agreement between the Freyhan Foundation and the West Feliciana School Board, which will make the building available for cultural events, conferences, weddings, live performances, and other community happenings. The hope is for construction to be completed prior to December 30, 2024—Nancy Vinci’s ninetieth birthday.
