re: I might be asking a dumb question, but regarding old money southern elites

There are a lot of old money homes in Uptown New Orleans, etc. that are still occupied by the families that built them. They're not necessarily plantations but they are just as grand, if not more so. They aren't on large pieces of property now, but at one point they were.

A friend of mine when I was in high school lived in a beautiful antebellum mansion on State St., right off St. Charles Ave. There was even a cell under the house that had been used to punish slaves.