How Did Plantation Shutters Get Their Name?

Solid window shutters have a fascinating history that predates the glass windows they protect today, and outside of the marble louvres of Ancient Greece and solid hide protection, are one of the first window covering systems ever invented.

The most popular type of shutters, however, are the versatile, endlessly elegant and functional plantation shutters, which provide effective ventilation, home protection and control of natural light.

Initially, however, the concept of louvre shutters did not actually come from plantations, but instead, like the popularity of most window coverings, from the Sun King himself, King Louis XIV.

He insisted on the use of window shutters, in part so people could sleep comfortably in his royal domicile without being spied upon, and the royal cooks could use the kitchen without an abundance of sunlight burning them or making the kitchen too hot to use.

This, along with King Louis’ obsession with curtains on every wall, bed and other conceivable space, made him a very important part of the story of shutters, and it would only take a century or two for louvred shutters and curtains to spread beyond the Royal Courts of France.

Where these shutters would get their name would be in the Antebellum era in the southern United States, where the large plantation manor houses, often designed with overt inspiration from Gothic Revival and other European design movements, would employ shutters on every window.

After the end of the plantation era that coincided with the end of the American Civil War, many of the exterior window shutters were kept for decorative rather than practical reasons, helped by the development of more practical and affordable glass sheets that began in the latter part of the 19th century.