A robin's egg blue brocade gown with a skirt so wide its wearer had to turn sideways just to get through a cottage door. A brooch passed down from a grandmother who once sewed dresses for Natchez tableaux. For the sixth straight year, Lori Ott and Tim Bellan have turned a small cottage at a historic Louisiana plantation into their own private 18th-century stage, one elaborate costume change at a time.
The two rent the Old Kitchen Cottage at Butler Greenwood Plantation near St. Francisville for the week leading up to Halloween each year, according to The Advocate. On Friday, Ott appeared in her robin's egg blue brocade French aristocrat's gown while Bellan wore a French Rococo aristocrat costume accented with a brooch his grandmother gave him. The outlet reports this marks their sixth year returning to the same cottage for the tradition.
Their friendship goes back further than the costumes do. Ott and Bellan became close in 2018 while coaching gymnastics together in Virginia, the same report notes. Two years later, in 2020, the pair went looking for a place where they could dress up, eventually landing on Butler Greenwood that year.
A Wide Gown and a Narrow Door
Getting into character has its logistical hazards. Ott's gown, built with metal boning that holds the skirt out from her hips, proved too wide for the cottage doorway on its own terms, forcing her to turn sideways to pass through, per the same account. It is the kind of small, physical comedy that comes with committing fully to a period silhouette.
The tradition does not stop at Friday's outfit. The Advocate's reporting indicates Ott is saving an Anne Boleyn gown for Halloween itself, with Bellan planned to appear as her Henry VIII. Butler Greenwood itself provides a fitting backdrop for the Tudor-to-Rococo wardrobe rotation: the estate was begun in the 1790s by members of the family that still occupies it today, according to Visit St. Francisville.
A Historic Property With Room to Roam
Butler Greenwood's Bed and Breakfast lists its address as 8345 U.S. Highway 61 in St. Francisville, Louisiana, according to Butler Greenwood's own site. The property's reach gives the friends plenty of ground to stage their annual photo shoots, turning a quiet stretch of Louisiana countryside into a backdrop for powdered wigs and period gowns for one week every autumn.
What began as a pandemic-era search for somewhere to play dress-up has become a fixture on both friends' calendars, returning them each fall to the same cottage, the same plantation grounds, and a fresh set of costumes to work through before Halloween arrives.
