Elm Bluff Plantation

Elm Bluff Plantation is a Greek Revival plantation house overlooking the Alabama River in the community of Elm Bluff in Dallas County, Alabama, built around 1845 for the Staten Island merchant and banker John Jay Crocheron, whose enslaved workforce of about 200 people operated the surrounding farmland. The two and one half story brick mansion is organized around a central hall with a grand staircase, and is known for design details unusual for the Deep South, including full height Doric pilasters, frieze windows carved with Greek key motifs, and granite sills and lintels shipped in from the northeastern United States, leading architectural historians to describe it as a New York house set down in a Deep South setting. The house now stands unoccupied and deteriorating, with damage to its exterior features and loss of interior woodwork.