Shaded by towering magnolia trees, this antebellum plantation house, built for Williamson Freeman on 1,000 acres of land west of Jefferson, is an exceptional example of the Greek Revival raised cottage type transplanted to Texas from Louisiana. Freeman brought his family by steamboat from Georgia via New Orleans. In Jefferson, he developed warehouses on the city’s waterfront and founded a company that manufactured fabric goods and spinning thread. By 1850, Freeman built his plantation house beyond the west edge of the town as a reflection of his growing prosperity and affluence. Constructed by slave labor, the house features delicate Greek Revival detailing on the clapboard-sided piano nobile, which rests upon a raised brick basement. Both levels feature a center-hall plan, accentuated by the dramatic flight of stairs rising to the tetrastyle portico, which is supported by two-story tapering brick columns covered in stucco that lack bases and capitals. Originally, the basement hallway was open-air: a Texas dogrun adaptation of the Louisiana precedent.