Speaker: David Broussard
Location: Old Governor’s Mansion
Time: Refreshments at 6:00pm, Lecture starts at 6:30pm

The Old St. Gabriel Church appears on its face as a fairly typical late 19th century Gothic Revival wood frame church, but what lies beneath its surface is a rare 18th century early Creole Colonial structure that is the oldest church structure in the Mississippi Valley.

David presents historical background and details that describe the building of the church in the 1770's by the Acadian settlers of the St. Gabriel and the Spanish colonial government.  And I will provide physical evidence from within the walls of the building as the basis for determining what the church looked like when first built in 1776 and how that original form is a rare example of the earliest Creole architecture of the Louisiana.

David Broussard has worked in the field of historic preservation for the past 33 years as a building restoration craftsman and as a furniture conservator. In 1989, he was awarded preservationist of the year by the Foundation for Historical Louisiana due to his restoration of a 1799 Creole house from St. John the Baptist parish. In the 1970s and 80s, he was involved in numerous historic building projects while working for historic building contractor Sid Gray. Broussard also began his furniture making career in the late 70s and eventually was also doing furniture conservation work.

Broussard has become renowned for his conservation work with early Louisiana furniture particularly the Louisiana armoire. He has worked on over one hundred Louisiana armoires. He has also worked for numerous museums, historic tourist attractions, and private furniture collectors.