New Old Orleans GREAT AMERICAN HOMES j^n BOSTOM PUBLIC LIBRARY GREAT AMERICAN HOMES Old New Orleans BY VANCE MUSE PHOTOGRAPHY BY KAREN RADKAI Oxmoor House. . GreatAmerican Homes Author: Vance Muse is a writer at Life was created and produced by magazine. He has also contributed Rebus, Inc. articles to House C£f Garden, Texas and published by Oxmoor House, Inc. Monthly, and other publications. Rebus,Inc. Photographer: KarenRadkaiisa Publisher: Rodney Friedman photographerbasedinNewYorkand Editor:CharlesL. Mee,Jr. Paris. HerworkhasappearedinHouse PictureEditor: MaryZ.Jenkins £;fGarden,WorldofInteriors, Vogue,and ArtDirector: RonaldGross Self ManagingEditor: FredricaA. Harvey ConsultingEditor: MichaelGoldman Consultant:SamuelJ.Dornsife, A.S.I.D.,F.R.S.A.,isadesignerand Production: Paul Levin, lecturerspecializinginAmerican Giga Communicaiions, Inc. decorativeartsofthenineteenth century. Heisaspecialconsultanttothe AmericanWingoftheMetropolitan Museumof.\rtin NewYorkandhas advisedontherestorationofseveralof thenation'shistorichouses. Copyright € 1988by Rebus. Inc. Published by Oxmoor House. Inc. Book Division ofSouthern ProgressCorporation P.O. Box 2463 Birmingham. .AL35201 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmay bereprtxluced.storedinaretrievalsystemor transmiued.inanyformorbyanymeans, electronic.mechaViicai.phoKxopying. recordingoroiherv\ise.withoutpermissionin writingfromthepublisher. Librar)'ofCongress CataloginginPublicationData Muse.Vance. 1949- OldNewOrleans. (GreatAmericanhomes) Includesindex. — 1 NewOrleans(La.)—Dwellings.— 2. Historicbuildings Louisiana .NewOrleans. — — 3. Eclecticismin architecture Louisiana New(.)rleans. 1. Title. II. Series. NA7238.N.5M8 720'.9-63'35 84-15501 ISBN 0-8487-0757-5 Cover: Maddox-Brennan House. CONTENTS FOREWORD 4 INTRODUCTION 6 CHAPTER 1 PiTOT HOUSE: CREOLE COMFORTS 16 PORTFOLIO IRON FANCIES 34 CHAPTER 2 Hermann-Grima HOUSE: An American Look 46 PORTFOLIO FROM CURVES TO CURLS 62 CHAPTER 3 1850 HOUSE: Rococo Row House 72 PORTFOLIO SERVICE FOR GENERATIONS 88 CHAPTER 4 GaLLIER HOUSE: VICTORIAN BY DESIGN 100 PORTFOLIO FAMILY PORTRAITS BY A MASTER 120 CHAPTER 5 STRACHAN HOUSE: CONFEDERATE DREAMS 128 PORTFOLIO ALFRESCO HIDEAWAYS 144 CHAPTER 6 MADDOX-BRENNAN HOUSE: ORDER AND OPULENCE 154 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND CREDITS 172 INDEX 173 FOREWORD T New |o a great extent Orleans looks like the city it was long ago. Certainly the streets of the city have changed, and the things in them, but the remarkable number of buildings surviving from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have challenged time. Old New Orleans presents a sampling ofthe city's most significant historic houses, architectural treasures that follow the town's development from a New France JACKSON sQLARK trading depot, to a cosmopolitan "New^ Paris," to the premier antebellum port city. Concentrated in the Vieux Carre are some of the late-eighteenth- century homes of the Creole descendants of New Orleans' European settlers. Whether four-room cottages or three-story town houses, Cre- ole residences were (and are) ideally suited to the semitropical climate, for they are built in the local French and Spanish Colonial idiom with porte cochere entrances, overhanging roofs and broad galleries, shut- tered French doors, and courtyards. When Americans poured into the city after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, they brought more formal architectural styles with them. Federal and Georgian houses began to appear, and in the flush dec- ades before the Civil ^Var, the Americans built in the classical revival styles sweeping the country. The Greek Revival and, later, the Ital- ianate styles were particularly popular in New Orleans. Though these houses brought a new look to New Orleans, and different floor plans (with central and side hallways rather than porte cocheres), thev were obviously influenced by their Creole forebears. The more elaborate of New Orleans homes, Creole and American alike, were graced with — cast iron the structural and decorative element that has become a virtual symbol of the citv. The idea in New Orleans was to strike bal- ances between formality and informality. "Living well" did not mean merely surrounding oneself with expensive possessions, for the great- est luxury of all was to be comfortable on a hot summer day. New Orleans' historic houses exist today only because individuals and foundations have cared and worked to restore and preserve them. Some of the most important of the city's early historic houses are open to the public as museums; many more are private homes, whose own- ers have preserved the integrity of the houses' original design and decoration. Outstanding examples of New Orleans' architectural her- itage are presented here, in the houses of Old New Orleans. This is a story not only ofCreoles and Americans but ofmany peoples, cultures, and influences that have made New Orleans the unique cit\ it is. SAMUEL WILSON, JR.. F.A.IA. NEW ORLEANS. LOUISIANA -^X^.r^^-'J^ ra x: m 1 rr. •/ /^1 , - • . %'V:'-J^jr^ K|i V Jf." SEifir^^^ fV;, > »•». 1 :tir Ik i w^Wf'V*^V vi'd'*^' '•-- •v-'>^S^ ^'%r^^ V ^•^^M ^y jf •-^Vr'!^ ^ •'- •'^••.••. /'. yfe^ L^i ,'^ INTRODUCTION Though many people are so taken with the old-world charms of New Orleans that they think ofthe place as some sort oftheme park, it is a real — city. As real cities do, New Orleans contradicts itself it is both beautiful and not, and its elegance can be the shabby kind. The city is at once Catholic, heathen, gritty, and grand. It is a city of ancient social hierarchies, of invitation-only balls and members-only clubs, yet thebest parties are unseemly free- for-alls on the street. New Orleans is not the city it once was, no longer the magnet of the South, but it has something its rivals lack, something all colorful (or corrupt) characters have: New Orleans has a visible history, a past that is very much present. Walk the streets and ride the streetcars of New Orleans and you sense the — influence of three centuries and more countries. The mixture of cultures par- — ticularly the Creole, of European descent is evident in the language, cuisine, music, the pace of the city, and in the architectural crossbreeds that define this distinctive cityscape. ("Creole," often thought to be of French origin, is from the Spanish criar, to "create" or "breed." The word properly describes the people descended from European colonists and their culture.) While New Orleans looks like no other place, it seems familiar, triggering deja vu: you might have seen these houses, or parts ofthem, in the West Indies, or Spain, the south ofFrance, along the eastern seaboard, oron southern plantations. From spare cottages and bungalows to trim town houses and structures that recall Olympus, these historic houses evoke a time when New Orleans was the busiest port in the nation and the richest ofcities. A bed ofazaleas is matched,flowerforflower it seems, by a cast-iron trellis thatforms thefront porch and galleij ofthis Italianate house in New Orleans. The high-spirited decoration over the more formal classical design typifies the relaxed elegance ofthe city's architecture. — INTRODUCTION With its modern skyline and Superdome safely in the business district, New Orleans keeps the narrow, sunny streets of the Vieux Carre and the shady avenues of the Garden District much as they were long ago. Simple to grand, New Orleans' houses are all of a piece, reflecting standards set A early in the eighteenth century. few of the earliest structures stand, survivors of — time and oftwo fires that destroyed most everything else in New Orleans first in 1788, again in 1794. When not single storied, these handsome cottages follow a provincial European plan with residential quarters above first-floor offices or shops. Oversize roofs top them like wide-brimmed hats, deflecting intense sun and rain, and several pairs of French doors can be — completely shuttered again, against the elements. Though they sit close to the street on the banquette (the French term for "sidewalk" still holds), the cottages are perfectly contained, with their modestfacades and shut- A tered doors. discreet entrance also ensures privacy: there being no front door, you open a gate at one side of the house, close it behind you, and follow a porte cochere to a courtvard around back. Inside thev are — cottagey four rooms square, a lavout repeated on additional floors. Front and back rooms join to make TheAmericanflagis raisedabo-ceSew simple double parlors, while the others serve as librar- OrleanstocelebratetheisosLowsiar—m ^ Purchase,bywhichFrancesolathecity ieS, dining rooms, or bedrooms. The cottages are much and the Territory—toAmerica. more open than they seem to be from the outside, and thev merge quite naturally with the environment. Light comes in through the louvered shutters, and breezes circulate from door to door, cooling the high-ceilinged rooms. Many ofthose door- ways lead to courtyards, balconies, porches, and verandas (also known as galleries), erasing the lines between indoors and out. Airiness is perhaps the most charac- — teristic aspect of New Orleans domestic architecture one or two alfresco retreats will grace even the smallest cottage, giving it a bivouac qualitv Yet these open houses remain remarkably private. Courtyards are hardlv visible from the banquettes you get only a glimpse of green down a walkwav or over a rooftop. Adjacent to the courtyard ofa more elaborate house will hedigargonniere, housing the sons ofa large Creole family (The name is derived from gargon, the French for "voung man.'") — Servants' quarters were aho located in back, as were kitchens Creoles isolated 8