The oldest house in Broussard sits at 408 W. Main St. For years, the city's plan to turn it into a welcome center was paid for a little at a time: a furniture grant, proceeds from a holiday home tour, and a few tens of thousands of dollars in a single year. That changed in 2026. The City Council adopted a budget with a $1.2 million line for the house, and in October the city received a tourism grant for what it now calls a visitor center and museum.
So the Valsin Broussard House enters this holiday season as a funded capital project with a completion date on the city's books. Anyone walking Main Street for Noël à Broussard on December 5 will pass a building the city has scheduled to finish by June 30, 2027.
A house built by the man the town is named for
Valsin Broussard built the two-story frame house in 1876, according to the city's Discover Broussard architecture itinerary. It is a Creole-style house with a front gallery and a hall-less plan two rooms deep. The round gallery columns and the one-story rear wing were added around 1900, and the central chimney is gone. The itinerary notes that despite these changes, the house "would still be easily recognizable to its builder."
The house is on the National Register of Historic Places because of who built it. Its architecture is not the reason. Valsin Broussard and his family settled on this land soon after the Civil War. He donated the eight arpents where the church and cemetery stand, plus the land for the Southern Pacific depot, and the town was named for him when it was laid out. Broussard incorporated in 1884, let its charter lapse in 1886 when residents elected no officers, and incorporated again in 1906. A city history document gives March 14, 1983, as the date the house joined the National Register.
The house is the clearest physical link between Broussard today and the founding gifts of land that made it a town. It is also the building the city has spent the longest time getting ready for public use.
Years of small checks
Before this year, the house's public future was paid for in amounts better suited to furnishing a room than rehabilitating a building. The record shows that progression:
- The purchase and a furniture grant. The Acadiana Advocate reported that the city bought the property and then received a $7,500 grant from the Lafayette Convention and Visitors Commission. The money was for displays and furniture to show donated historic items, and the house was meant to fit into the city's downtown redevelopment plan.
- A holiday home tour. In December 2024, a city-submitted notice for Bienvenue de Maison Noelle described a self-guided evening tour of decorated historic homes, with local choirs and Main Street businesses open late. Tickets were $50, and proceeds went toward rehabilitating the Valsin Broussard Home.
- A modest year of spending. The city's newest budget document shows $46,190 in actual spending on the house in the most recent completed year of actual figures.
When Mayor Ray Bourque announced the furniture grant, he described the goal in terms that still match the plan, as quoted in The Acadiana Advocate:
"The City of Broussard has invested in the Valsin Broussard House in order to create a unique historic showcase and welcome center for our community."
Each of these steps kept the project moving. None of them matched the cost of turning a 150-year-old frame house into a public building.
The budget year that changes the scale
On June 17, 2026, the Broussard City Council adopted Ordinance #26-844. It sets the operating budget for the fiscal year running July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2027. All seven council members voted yes. The capital outlay schedule in the budget document lists "Valsin Broussard house" at $1,200,000, paid from General Fund revenues, with a completion date of June 30, 2027.
That figure looks bigger next to the rest of the record:
- It is 160 times the $7,500 furniture grant.
- It is roughly 26 times the $46,190 spent on the house in the most recent year of actual figures.
- It makes up about 39% of the $3,090,000 in general government capital items for the year. Only the $1.5 million council chambers project is larger. The street décor line is $50,000.
The city's own spending plan now treats the founder's house as one of its two biggest general government projects of the year.
Outside money followed in the fall. On October 19, 2026, the Broussard Economic Development Corporation announced that the city had received a Visitor Enterprise Grant from the Lafayette Convention & Visitors Commission for the "Valsin Broussard Visitor Center and Museum Project." The BEDC said the project would preserve local history and create a destination that draws visitors.
The project's name has also grown. The Advocate's earlier coverage described a welcome center, and the city's tourism page still calls the house "currently being developed by the City of Broussard as a meeting and welcome center." The October announcement adds the word museum. A building planned to greet visitors is now also planned to tell the town's history.
The neighbors along Main Street
The house is part of a larger historic stretch of Main Street. The city's Discover Broussard architecture itinerary quotes the National Register nomination, which says Broussard holds three of the four Italianate commercial buildings known to remain in Lafayette Parish. The same nomination says the town's Queen Anne Revival homes stand out for "their elaborate massing" and features like turrets, cupolas and projecting bays.
The Andre Billeaud House at 203 E. Main St. is a good example. It was built in 1903 and has an octagonal parlor, fish-scale shingles in its gables, 14-foot ceilings and 12-foot double-hung windows. These houses are a generation newer than Valsin Broussard's and far more ornate. The founder's house is plainer and older, a frame Creole house that was standing before the Victorian-era homes that came to define this part of town.
For anyone who looks closely at old houses, that contrast is easy to see on a single walk. Main Street runs from the 1870s Creole house at 408 W. Main to the turn-of-the-century Queen Anne homes, and each building shows a different stage of how the town grew.
Downtown on December 5
The next time Main Street fills up is Noël à Broussard on Saturday, December 5, from 2 to 7 p.m. The event is presented by the Broussard Chamber of Commerce and centered near City Hall, according to the Lafayette Travel event listing. The listed schedule:
- 2 p.m. Vendor market and Reindeer Games
- 3 p.m. Parade begins
- After the parade until 5:30 p.m. Photos with Santa in City Hall
- 4:30 p.m. Caroling on stage
- 5:45 p.m. Drone show
- Immediately after the drone show Lighting of the city Christmas tree
The drone show is in its second year. The BEDC called the 2025 show the city's first-ever Christmas-themed drone light show. Last year the tree was lit at 5:45 p.m. and the drones flew afterward, as 97.3 The Dawg reported. This year's listing reverses that order, so the drones fly first and the tree lighting closes the evening.
The parade starts at Morgan Avenue and Albertson Parkway, follows Morgan Street to Main Street, and ends at Arceneaux Park. Road closures from the listing:
- Morgan Street, Albertson Parkway to Main Street, 1 to 4 p.m.
- Main Street, St. Cecilia School to Arceneaux Park, 1 to 4 p.m., and South Washington to Lafayette Street, 1:30 to 7 p.m.
- Railroad Street at South Washington and South Morgan, 1:30 to 7 p.m., with entry allowed for business access
- Polk Street, Main Street to East Madison, 1:30 to 7 p.m.
Discover Broussard's calendar also lists Bienvenue de Maison Noelle for December 10, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with the line "The Annual Holiday Home tour is Back!" The 2024 edition of that tour raised money for the house at 408 W. Main. This December, the house also has a $1.2 million budget line and an October grant behind it, with the city's completion date set for June 30, 2027.
Sylvia has spent more than two decades building and selling homes across Acadiana, and Broussard's historic Main Street homes are some of the most distinctive in the parish. If you have questions about the town's older houses or what goes into restoring one, Sylvia McLain & Cody Musgrove would be glad to talk them through with you. Let's Connect.
