The LeBeau House In Arabi, Louisiana

            

Very sad news on November 22, 2013!! LeBeau House has burned to the ground. I'm feeling very sick right now. I was going to visit it next month. I just knew one day I would turn the news on and see the house in flames. Sad day, indeed. :( 

Apparantly, some punks, and I could use much harsher words, went into the house looking for ghosts and decided to set it on fire. I hope they are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law! It's also unfortunate that the Meraux Foundation didn't care enough to have the house secured. So, I think they are as much to blame. 

The seven "scumbags" arson suspects are, top left, Joshua Allen, Kevin Barbe, Joshua Briscoe and Dusten Davenport (the guy whose idea it was to burn it down), and bottom left, Jerry Hamblen, Joseph Landin and Bryon Meek.

 

LeBeau House burning to the ground. November 22, 2013. Photo by Ray Solis.

  I'm giving away free PDF promo copies of my book The Secret Of LeCeau House based on the LeBeau House in Arabi, Louisiana. So, if you'd like to read it, email me at order2q@gmail.com  

   There's a plantation house in Arabi, which is in Louisiana, that sits in ruins. I've been fascinated with it since I was first told about it.
   I have a book by the British author Elliot O'Donnell called Great Ghost Stories. I love ghost stories, and I've been reading them since I was very young. It seems the British ghost stories are always the most interesting. American ghost stories have a different feel to them, but they are just as absorbing.
   Elliot O'Donnell was a ghost hunter back at the turn of the last century, and he investigated many in and around England and also the United States.

   Back before I learned of the LeBeau house I was reading his book, and it was around the time that I became very interested in plantation homes.
   I was going with a girl, at that time, whose mother had a book called Ghosts Along The Mississippi. My parents used to take my brother and I to visit plantation homes, that had been restored, and that planted a seed in me for my later fascination with these homes.
   But, when I saw the book Ghosts Along The Mississippi, the image on the cover was so compelling, and my interest grew even more. I studied the book, and I wanted to know more about these homes.
   My girlfriend's mother also had a book called Gumbo Ya-Ya, and in this book was listed the addresses of houses in New Orleans that were supposedly haunted.

   I was working for my step-dad, at that time, and we cleaned restaurant exhaust systems at night. One night, when we went on a job, the restaurant had to cancel, so I got the idea to go look for all these haunted houses that were listed in the Gumbo Ya-Ya book. In the dead of night, my brother and I, along with one of our co-workers, went and picked up the book, went and got a map and went exploring the not-so-safe streets of some of the New Orleans neighborhoods that these house were located in. Of course, crime there wasn't as bad back then, but we were going to places that were known to be pretty rough. We weren't worried about it, though, because we really wanted to see these houses, to know what a haunted house in New Orleans looked like. And, we were hoping to maybe see a ghost.
   We survived our daring adventure through the deadly streets of New Orleans, and we didn't see any ghosts. But, this helped cultivate my interest in old houses even more.

    I was playing in a band in Meraux, and, one night after practice, I was telling the guys about that journey we made on our search for ghosts. One of the guys in the band, Sam, told me about a house called LeBeau that was in ruins and supposedly haunted. I pestered him after that to either take me to it or tell me how to get there.
   One night, after a show we played in Chalmette, we all went to that house. As we drove down the street to it, I could see the hulking structure looming above the trees, the moonlight casting an eerie light on the silhouetted structure, and this feeling of awe came over me.
   I was mesmerized by the massive derelict that stood before us.

                           The promo for my book The Secret Of LeCeau House.  

   At that time, there was a ditch running along the front of the property, and through the ditch was a wooden fence from one end to the other. I don't know how they figured this would keep anyone out, because there was space enough to crawl under the fence at the bottom of the ditch. And, it was dry and cracked, so there was no need to worry about getting grimy. This is how we got to the other side.

   We crept slowly toward the house, and it was already decided that we would go in. We were going to find out if it was really haunted. Sam told us that there was an old man living in the little trailer next to it. And, it was rumored that he had a shot gun and wouldn't hesitate to use it to ward off unwanted visitors to the house.
   Back in 1986, it caught on fire caused by some transients that were using some illegal substance in the cupola. It was reported that they had knocked over a candle, and things quickly got out of hand with the flames. The house was saved, and there wasn't damage bad enough to condemn it. After that, the fence was put up, and the old man and the trailer was installed onto the property to watch over it.
   I can understand the owner not wanting anyone to go into the house. Something like that could happen again. But, we really wanted to go in it, and it was in the dead of night. What better time to witness a ghost? We got as far as the veranda. But, fear can spread like wildfire quickly through a group of people expecting the worst of situations.

   We never saw the inside of the house that night, we never saw a ghost, and we never saw the old man. We left shortly after we got there. But, this house has never left my thoughts. I've visited it many times since then, and I even got to go in it once. I used to work in a wrecking yard. I worked there for a very long time. It's in New Orleans East and not far from LeBeau. Chalmette is just across the Green Bridge from the wrecking yard and Arabi just shortly beyond going West. Usually, every Thanksgiving and Christmas, I would ride around parts of New Orleans, New Orleans East and Chalmette.
   They would let us go early at the yard the day before Thanksgiving and on Christmas Eve, and that's when I'd go for my ride. I felt like I had a bit of freedom on those days, the weather was perfect, and it was an annual thing for me to ride looking at different sites.

   In 2004, I went to visit the Lebeau house on Christmas Eve on my ride that day, and I brought a camera. When I got there, I was surprised to see that the wooden fence that had surrounded it was no longer there. I parked on the dirt bridge that connected the property to the street, and I just stood there taking in the scene that lay before me. I took two pictures of the house, but I never went further than where my truck was parked. I didn't want to trespass.
   I visited the house on and off, through the years, never going in it. But, on a cold day in February of 2007, I decided to go in. The house was completely open. No doors, no boards covering the windows, no nothing to keep me out.
    It was one of the greatest moments of my life. To finally see the inside was something I had wanted for a long time. I didn't stay long, though. I wasn't comfortable with trespassing, and there were many holes in the floor making me think it wouldn't be safe to go further.

   When I got home that day, I downloaded a few songs, and two of them were Evanescence songs. One-Lithium, and two-My Immortal. It was while I was listening to Lithium that I really started thinking about the house and how I had gone in it that day. Somehow, I began to create a fantasy in my mind with the house imagining that it was haunted and that I was standing across the street witnessing this ghost that haunted it slowly coming out onto the veranda and beckoning me to come discover her secret.
   Amy Lee, the singer of Evanescence became that ghost. I listened to the song Lithium over and over again all the while imagining the house and Amy Lee as the ghost.

   Over the next few years, I continued to listen to Evanescence, especially their album The Open Door. For some reason, that album helped me keep a connection with the LeBeau house. I can't explain why, but there's just something about it that takes me there in my thoughts every time I listen to it.
And, as I listened, more of this story of the ghost in the ruins developed until I had a whole book to write.
So, I set out to do it.
After 7 months, I finally had it done. Here's a brief description along with an excerpt from the book:

Do you believe in ghosts?
Some say they walk among us lost and searching for the doorway that leads into forever.
Some say they are here to torment us for reasons only known to them.
One holds a secret that has been kept until the time is right for its revealing-a secret hidden away in an old house that sits in ruins and haunted by a woman waiting for the man destined to discover that secret.

...The haunting face I had first encountered on the veranda of the ruins emerged from the thick fog as it did from the darkness there that day when I was beckoned to discover what was hidden away in the wall.
   Did it belong to the phantom that haunted the bare and decaying rooms of the old LeCeau house or was it the woman that was so alive within the walls of the house as it was meant to be?...

The Secret Of LeCeau House A Ghost Story  By James Griffin

     My book was inspired by LeBeau house.  I had a lot of fun writing it, and the story is very special to me since it is about one of my favorite subjects.
   If I hadn't been reading Elliot O'Donnell, I might not have ever found out about it all those years ago.


Also, I have a brief history of the LeBeau house here with a couple of interesting facts: http://laplantationsghostsofthepast.blogspot.com/

I've been hanging around with a squirrel in my backyard. He sometimes likes to eat peanuts on my knee. Here's a video of him, if you'd like to see. :)