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As Louisiana’s antebellum architectural jewel, 149-year-old Nottoway Plantation is undergoing a restoration and modernization that includes a new restaurant, flat-screen televisions and WiFi to attract the world-class traveler.

“We are providing the resources to ensure that the restoration is conducted in a manner that will preserve Nottoway for many more years,” says Australian businessman Paul Ramsay, who has owned the Iberville Parish plantation since 1985. This is Ramsay’s second renovation of Nottoway since its previous owner, Arlin Dease, opened the property for tours in the early 1980s.

Calling the mansion “an American icon,” Ramsay says renovations to the South’s largest remaining antebellum home [30,000 square feet] will continue through this year. The business will be closed in July, August and September.

Interim General Manager Dale F. Huval says Nottoway, also called an “American castle,” is getting a facelift in everything from new management to significant structural and grounds renovations to additions focused on guest services. Huval arrived in February to oversee the transition.

Huval says Ramsay is “making a commitment to services and hospitality.”

“People come to Nottoway to view the beautiful home, view the serenity of the home and for hospitality,” Huval says. “What I’ve come to learn is to keep these antebellum properties going, they have to be financially viable. We’re getting the services where the modern-day traveler is comfortable, sleeping in a very nice bed with a nice bathroom, but also honoring the historic value and property.”

An architect experienced in historic structures is leading the renovation along with a commercial contractor equally experienced in restorations in the South. Efforts will focus on modernizing the mansion with its unusual combination of Greek revival architecture and innovations by its owner, while preserving its history.

Nottoway was designed in Greek and Italian style by Henry Howard, a renowned New Orleans architect of the 1800s. Businessman John Hampden Randolph had his “castle” built with no expense spared [an estimated $80,000 at the time] for him, his wife and their 11 children.

The mansion sits on grounds that at one time included 400 acres of highland and 620 acres of swamp after the Civil War, along the Mississippi River, a major commerce route for steamboats and showboats at the time.

Nottoway Plantation included a schoolhouse, greenhouse, stable, steam-powered sugarhouse, slave quarters, and wooden cisterns. The three-story mansion was completed in 1859 with 64 rooms, six interior staircases, three modern bathrooms, 22 massive square columns, 165 doors and 200 windows. The ceilings are 15 1/2 feet high with doors 11 feet high.

Considered its most unique room, the main stairwell enters a sprawling, semicircular white ballroom with Corinthian columns and hand-cast archways. Its many extravagances include ornamental iron railings capped with molded wooden handrails, 12 hand-carved Italian marble coal-burning fireplaces, hand-pained Dresden porcelain doorknobs, brass and crystal chandeliers, “fancy chamber pots” [flushing toilets], gas lighting, mahogany stairways carpeted in velvet and a bowling alley.

The building materials included virgin cypress cut and cured from the Randolphs’ first home, nearby Forest Home Plantation [they kept the location after moving into Nottoway], which has lent to it resisting termites, and handmade bricks made locally by slaves.

“We will put hospitality at the forefront to our guests,” Huval says. “We’ll spend a tremendous amount of time on staff training while we’re closed.”

In the interior, he says fixtures like ornate plaster frieze work, moldings, cornices, shutters and doors all will be restored to their original beauty. The interior and exterior will be totally repainted and plumbing and electrical upgrades will be made. Several decorators have been hired to enhance the existing 15 overnight guest rooms.

The kitchen area will be extensively renovated to improve dining services and promote events being held in the existing restaurant. Randolph Hall, which is also being renovated, will be used exclusively for special functions like receptions, weddings and corporate functions. A wedding cottage is being added that will include vanities and a hair salon.

“The addition of a new restaurant facility is only the beginning of the culinary enhancements at Nottoway,” Ramsay says. “With plans in place for this new restaurant and elevating Nottoway’s cuisine through the talents of a world-renowned chef, we are certain to have a dining experience unsurpassed in this region.”

Chef Michel Maloiseau, a native of Tours, France, and the former executive chef of cuisine at the Ritz-Carlton Chicago, has been named the mansion’s executive chef. Huval says Maloiseau will enhance the restaurant’s offerings as well as create the opportunity to provide room service there for the first time.

Maloiseau will hire a pastry chef, who will prepare items for breakfast, dessert and afternoon coffee and tea.

“This is very exciting just to get with a project like this,” says Maloiseau, who is planning a menu that will include local and French cuisine. “This is going to be wonderful.”

The new Mansion Restaurant will include a bar and lounge area, which will offer southern comfort in historic settings, he says.

Areas of the property will offer

WiFi—or wireless communication—and guest rooms will include flat-screen televisions. A new central heating and cooling system is being installed, replacing window units and improving humidity control and air circulation in the house.

Huval says an estimated 800-square-foot museum will house Nottoway’s historic items, including artifacts like a cannonball and documents from the Civil War. A consultant has been hired to help organize and preserve the collection. A writer also is being commissioned to write the Nottoway Plantation history.

On the exterior, an extensive landscape improvement plan, including enhancing lighting, parking and pathways, is under way and will be completed by fall. The initial phase also includes garden settings and backdrops to accommodate outdoor weddings and special functions on the grounds.

The second phase of renovations could include rebuilding the carriage house, eight additional high-end guest rooms and adding a full-service spa, which Huval says should begin in spring 2009. Although the carriage house had become unsafe structurally, the tin and salvageable wood from the original building has been saved and will be used in its reconstruction. Old photographs will be used to ensure it is rebuilt as close to the original as possible.

“We’re not just painting our buildings and planting new trees,” Huval says. “We’re elevating our quality of services.”