T'Frere's House

One of the oldest homes in Lafayette, now operating as a charming bed and breakfast. A large barrel for catching rainwater, still in place today, holds a tragic secret.

T'Frere's House sits at 1905 Verot School Road in Lafayette, a French Farmhouse originally built on seventy-two acres of the Comeaux Plantation. The property was purchased in 1886 by Oneziphore Comeaux for three hundred seventy-five dollars from a relative named Eloi Benoit, and the main house was completed in the 1890s, featuring Creole, French Colonial, and Anglo-American architectural elements including white clapboard construction and six Doric columns on the front porch. The name T'Frere's derives from Ti Frere, Mauritian Creole for Little Brother, which was Amelie Comeaux's childhood nickname for her brother Oneziphore.

The haunting centers on two women tied to the property by tragedy. The earliest spirit is believed to be twelve-year-old Marie Comeaux, who accidentally drowned in the property's well in 1827, roughly seventy years before the current house was built. Her father died from yellow fever just one week later. The well is believed to still exist beneath the house. Marie is described as a friendly but mischievous spirit. Guests staying overnight report feeling themselves being gently tucked into bed, followed by the playful sensation of someone tugging at their toes.

The more prominent ghost is Amelie Comeaux, who lived in the house and worked as a math teacher. According to the most widely told version of her story, Amelie lost both her husband and young child to yellow fever, leaving her devastated and alone. She was later found dead in the well behind the property. The circumstances of her death remain disputed. Former owner Maugie Pastor claimed Amelie was a schoolteacher who, at age thirty-two, contracted fever and stumbled into the well one evening while looking for water. Others believe she took her own life in grief. A third theory holds that Amelie was in an interracial relationship and was thrown into the well by those who disapproved. Whatever the truth, the Catholic Church ruled her death a suicide and denied her burial in sacred ground, a rejection believed central to her spiritual attachment to the property. During a later paranormal investigation, a voice identified as Amelie answered no when investigators asked if she had taken her own life.

The paranormal activity at T'Frere's is extensive and well-documented by owners, staff, and guests spanning decades. An early owner discovered the piano playing by itself at night. After she granted the spirit permission to play only when she was absent, it complied, but when the house became a bed and breakfast, the nighttime concerts resumed and the piano eventually had to be removed. Innkeeper Holly Trahan, then sixteen years old, found herself locked in a bathroom from the inside with no apparent cause. After apologizing in French, the door miraculously opened. Staff have witnessed shadow figures approaching the backyard cottage door, which opens by itself before the figure vanishes. An employee heard an unseen presence whistle back while she was whistling at work. Kitchen disturbances are common, with owners reporting all kinds of noise coming from the kitchen at all hours. As Pastor put it, she is one hundred percent Cajun and she does not like when you move things around, and she will put things back the way she wants them to be.

An exterminator reported seeing Amelie's apparition near the attic chimney, dressed in a rose-colored gown. Paranormal investigators also detected a third, unidentified male presence in the home. New Orleans native Richard Young acquired the property in 2014, and the activity continues. T'Frere's House remains one of the most actively haunted bed and breakfasts in Acadiana, a place where the Comeaux family spirits seem determined to remain as permanent residents.