When Bank of St. Francisville Chairman of the Board Conville Lemoine was growing up in St. Francisville, the Julius Freyhan School loomed large in the life of his family. His mother’s aunt, Mel Leake, who was born in 1898, attended the Freyhan School as a student, then returned as a teacher, staying until her retirement. In the 1940s, Conville’s dad, Rodney, taught music at Freyhan, and Conville remembers visiting the building as a little boy, when the halls still rang with voices and the offices of the West Feliciana School Board occupied the basement. The Freyhan School educated West Feliciana children from 1905—one year after Jewish merchant and local civic leader Julius Freyhan donated $8,000 to build the town’s first public school—until 1950, when it finally closed to students. In 1975, with the building deteriorating, former students Billie Magee, Fran McVea, and Mott Plettinger launched a campaign to save the Freyhan School, and the non-profit Julius Freyhan Foundation was born. By 1975 Conville was already working in banking, and a member of the West Feliciana School Board, which owned the building. “Miss Mott Plettinger is how I got into banking 55 years ago. She was my next-door neighbor,” remembers Conville, who joined Bank of St. Francisville in 1978 and continues to serve as its Chairman of the Board today. As efforts to return the Freyhan School to public life gathered steam, it was inevitable that this lifelong St. Francisvillian and small-town banker from a family of educators would be involved.
But restoring a century-old school takes time and money and by 2005, with the Freyhan School building continuing to deteriorate, Freyhan Foundation Board Chair Anne Bennett succeeded in getting the building included on the Louisiana Trust for Historic Preservation’s Most Endangered Places list. That same year, Julius Freyhan’s granddaughter, Pauline Friedman, died, leaving a fifth of her estate to the West Feliciana School Board to help preserve the building that bore her grandfather’s name. “The School Board asked me what they should do with the funds,” Conville remembers. “We converted them and the School Board used the proceeds over the years to stop the building from deteriorating further—keeping a roof on it and so on.”
"Fifty years after restoration efforts began, the Julius Freyhan School has undergone a stunning transformation. The $4.2 million project to save one of the Historic District's most iconic structures is complete, and this fall the building reopens as a cultural and conference center."
In 2007 while battling cancer, Board Chair Anne Bennett extracted a promise from her friend, Nancy Vinci, to see the Freyhan restoration to completion. Vinci made the project her life’s work, spurring an all-volunteer board to pursue state capital outlay funding, and establishing the Walker Percy Weekend literary festival in 2014 to raise funds for the restoration effort. In the decade since, the Walker Percy Weekend has raised more than $260,000 towards the restoration, helped by generous sponsorship support from local individuals and businesses including Bank of St. Francisville. 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 Freyhan, that the dream began to feel like reality.
That reality is now. Fifty years after restoration efforts began, the Julius Freyhan School has undergone a stunning transformation. The $4.2 million project to save one of the Historic District’s most iconic structures is complete, and this fall the building, which is still owned by the West Feliciana School Board, reopens as a cultural and conference center. According to current Freyhan Foundation President Betsy Levasseur, who also serves on Bank of St. Francisville’s board, the restoration installed new electrical, plumbing, roofing, and HVAC systems, while preserving the original structure’s tall windows, magnificent woodwork, and soaring, third-floor auditorium. When doors open in September, they’ll reveal meeting spaces, breakout rooms, artist’s studios, classroom spaces, a 150-seat performance theatre, and a museum interpreting the history of public education in West Feliciana Parish. Hollis Milton, Superintendent of the West Feliciana Parish School Board acknowledged the role that the Freyhan Foundation has played in restoring it to public life. “We are thrilled about the newly renovated Julius Freyhan School and proud of our long-standing partnership with the Julius Freyhan Foundation,” he said, noting that a cooperative endeavor agreement between the Freyhan Foundation and the West Feliciana School Board will make the building available for cultural events, conferences, weddings, live performances, and other community happenings. “Together, we are creating a space that will host private and public celebrations, cultural events, and student-centered programs that highlight the talents and achievements of our young people,” said Milton. “It’s an exciting time in St. Francisville, and we look forward to the many opportunities this collaboration will bring to our community.”
On the weekend of September 19—20, the Julius Freyhan School will reopen with a grand opening celebration featuring a concert by Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Sonny Landreth, and an opening reception for the tenth annual Walker Percy Weekend literary festival. Tickets are available for both events. Visit freyhanfoundation.org to learn more.
