A New Orleans hotel owner has scooped up an Iberville Parish plantation to add to his portfolio.Courtesy nottoway.com
MCC Real Estate CEO Joe Jaeger acquired Nottoway Plantation & Resort in White Castle in a deal that closed last week. Peter Aamodt, senior development manager at MCC Real Estate, said the purchase price was $3.1 million and “other goods and valuable considerations.”
The resort spans 31 acres and has 40 rooms, two honeymoon suites, ballrooms, two restaurants, meeting rooms, a hair and nail salon, an outdoor pool, fitness center and tennis courts. It’s about 25 miles from Baton Rouge and 70 miles from New Orleans.
Jaeger’s group owns several notable properties in New Orleans such as the Jung Hotel and Residences on Canal Street which recently reopened after a multimillion-dollar restoration, the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel, Mardi Gras World, the Joy Theater and Hotel Royal. Aamodt said the firm is working on a hotel project outside of Jackson, Mississippi, the only other property the company holds outside New Orleans.
“We are a hotel owner and operator in the French Quarter and New Orleans,” he said. “Outside of New Orleans, it’s something that has to be the right fit, and this one seems to fit well.”
Jaeger purchased the plantation from Australian businessman and philanthropist Paul Ramsay, who passed away in 2014. Aamodt said this was the last asset in Ramsay’s trust in the United States.
Ramsay performed a major overhaul of the property 10 years ago, but MCC Real Estate plans to do some additional capital improvements.
The Greek and Italianate-style home was completed in 1859 and is the largest antebellum mansion in the South, according to the plantation’s website. The 53,000-square-foot mansion has 64 rooms and features such as 22 exterior columns, 12 hand-carved Italian marble fireplaces, plaster frieze moldings, 15-foot ceilings, 11-foot doors and a pure white oval ballroom. It also offered bathrooms with running water and a gas plant providing gas lighting throughout the home.
The mansion was designed by New Orleans architect Henry Howard and commissioned by sugar cane planter John Hampden Randolph for him, his wife and 11 children.
