Colonel Robert Semple bought Desert Plantation in Louisiana in 1808 for 12,000 from Daniel Clark, affiliated with Louis and Clark Expedition. It was originally part of two Spanish land grants. Semple was married to Isabella Turnbull. The Turnbulls, a prominent family in the area at the time, built Rosedown in St. Francisville. Desert Plantation was built by Colonel Semple and Isabella in 1808. It was completed in 1812. Colonel Semple acted as architect and builder with help only from the on-site slaves. Colonel Semple died one year after Desert was completed. He died in 1813 of Yellow Fever. Isabella lived in Desert Plantation for 60 years after her husband's death. She used the house over that time as a hospital for Yellow Fever victims. Desert Plantation was a cotton plantation of about 1500 acres and consisted of two cotton gins, one and one-half miles of slave quarters, a milk room, a dairy, an outside kitchen, and the main house. After Isabella died in 1873, the plantation passed to the hands of her heirs: her son Robert, and two grandchildren, Sarah Jane Young and Robert Semple Young. All who are buried in the Semple graveyard at Desert Plantation. In 1883, Desert Plantation was sold to Robert Norman, who only farmed the land. He put four sharecropper families in the house who did not treat it kindly. In 1900, Daniel Fielding Merwin bought "The Desert Plantation" as it was called then. It took the family two years to renovate, for it was in very poor shape. Since then, there have been three generations of the Merwin Family to live in the Desert House. Guests of our St. Francisville, Louisiana bed and breakfast are invited to come experience the hospitality and southern country charm of this beautiful antebellum home.