Copyright Baton Rouge Advocate
This storied Creole-Acadian cottage in the heart of downtown Breaux Bridge has seen a lot of life pass through its halls. It was built in 1811 as the home of Sylvestre and Marie Broussard, the daughter of Breaux Bridge's founder, Firmin Breaux. The Broussards raised five children on the bank of the bayou. More than 100 years later, the property was transformed into a boarding house — with the addition of a long hall of suites, and a dining room that boasts a 17 and a half foot old-growth cypress table. In the 1980s, MaryLynn Chauffe came along. The house was in dire need of saving. As a passionate preservationist, active civic leader and founding member of the Friends of Lake Martin, she undertook a historically sensitive restoration. Her work turned it into a showpiece of local culture and history, sheltering tourists, bridal couples and traveling musicians. Chauffe died in 2022. Her daughter, Debora Savoy, has been working with the Cheryl Cockrell Estate Sales team for weeks now to gather decades of glassware, antique furniture, old Mardi Gras costumes, cypress lamps, rope beds, black pots and thousands of other items from Chauffe's estate of multiple historic properties in the Breaux Bridge area. The cottage will host a large estate sale from Nov. 20-22. Apart from a few pieces the family is holding onto, everything is available — including that enormous cypress table, which was built inside the dining room and seats 18. And they have confirmed that it can be removed from the room. The home itself is also being offered for lease or sale, according to Savoy. Its restoration was a labor of love for her mother, and the bones of the house still stand as a testament to the area's history and development along the Teche. "The whole place was condemned. There were trees growing through the dining room," she said. "The porches had fallen off, and when people saw my mother doing this, the whole town got really excited and started finding pictures." Chauffe used some of the photographs to remake the porch railings. But Chauffe went beyond using photographs to bring the home back to its glory — she also sat on the front porch and straightened every square nail she found. "She researched every single thing. None of the beds are reproductions," Savoy said. "She had to get mattresses made to fit them, because the bed sizes have changed over the years." Cheryl Cockrell and her team specialize in the "most interesting and most difficult" estates, and this historic property certainly applies. Its sheer scale will be attractive to treasure hunters and lovers of Cajun country artifacts — like vintage Mardi Gras capuchons, the cone-shaped hats country revelers wear for chasing chickens and getting into shenanigans on Fat Tuesday. Cockrell has been working in estate sales for over 20 years, since retiring as an English teacher at Comeaux High School in Lafayette. Her team, made up of other retired teachers, have seen it all at this point, such as people coming in to camp at a sale in Opelousas in order to get their hands on a perfectly preserved vintage clothing haul. She said, "Teachers are good at estate sales. We know how to make you behave, while at the same time explaining how you can use that." "A lot of people say, 'Your job looks so fun.' It's hard," added Patricia Foster, a former home economics teacher from Comeaux. "The exploration is fun, because you never know what you're gonna find. As a home economist, I enjoy the research and explaining all of the items, and I've collected antiques my whole life." This sale will take place Nov. 20-22 in Breaux Bridge, and they ask that shoppers not request prices or early tours of the house. According to Cockrell, all items are priced to sell — the first day, ideally. "This is not an antique store where we hold onto it for four years," said Cockrell. "We have three days and we're here to sell."
