Sammy’s restaurant planned for part of Warren estate

An investor group that plans to build a Sammy’s Grill was the high bidder for a 5.1-acre portion of the Prairieville estate that once belonged to noted author Robert Penn Warren. The group bid $910,000 for the land in the auction today, says Steve Bonfanti, property developer. “We’ve been looking in that area for quite some time,” says Bonfanti. “We didn’t know anything about the historical benefits.” The plan is to open a restaurant by fall 2011 that would be similar to the Sammy’s in Central. Sammy’s has three locations in the Capital Region: on Highland Road in Baton Rouge, in Central and in Zachary. A turn-of-the-century farmhouse on the estate has been at the center of a dispute between its former owners and the bank, which foreclosed on the property in 2008. Warren, who was an LSU English professor in the 1930s and 1940s and co-founded the literary journal The Southern Review, is thought to have started developing his classic novel All the King’s Men while living in the house. Bonfanti says Sammy’s owners didn’t know anything about the literary history of the property. “The home is not visible from the restaurant site,” he says. “There are two or three acres between the two.” To read a 2009 Business Report story about the farmhouse and the disputes around it, click here. —Timothy Boone