TwelveTrue to its name, Twelve Oaks is a converted old plantation home, grand and majestic on the outside, with twelve enormous oak trees lining the entryway, six on either side of the road. Though it was built in 1839, the plantation's oak trees are believed to be a century older than the mansion itself. The docents of New Orleans fought long and hard to have it recognized as a historic landmark, but lost out to the medical community who fiercely lobbied for a new mental facility for the very wealthy as well as the indigent. The middle class, as usual, was ignored.
Tucked away from the public in a separate wing for the poor, the sanitarium's halls are a bland, institutional gray and green, inhabited by loitering patients, most of whom haven't a clue as to where they are or why. In contra
