Known as the high-class neighbourhood of New Orleans, the Garden District was built between 1882 and 1890 by wealthy European immigrants (mostly British) who became rich as cotton factors, merchants and brokers and then settled here, on the area now bordered by St. Charles Avenue, 1st, Magazine and Toledano streets.
One thing that makes this quarter so popular is it’s museum-like value, as it has the best preserved collection of historic mansions in the American South. The architectural styles range between Italianate, Beaux-Arts, Gothic Victorian, Greek Revival and Neo-Classical.
We started out on St. Charles Avenue (where the oldest streetcar line in the U.S.A. is still in operation for just a $1.25 fare), then wandered around the streets for hours on a hot, humid New Orleanian day, surrounding ourselves with sunlight, bird songs, small bugs, arched Southern live oak trees and beauty on every corner, contemplating life from the other side of the wooden houses with porch swings, Virgin Mary statues, white columns, plantation style balconies and sophisticated interior designs.
With over a thousand houses to gaze at and only one day to spare, we probably didn’t make the best decision by choosing to take a self-guided walking tour without an actual guide to introduce us to the area and show us the more talked-about, mysterious and fascinating mansions of the Garden District. Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun together – curious and grateful to be part of such an historical land, we played a game where we would pick our favourite house and pretend we lived there.
As we were soon to find out, the neghbourhood continues to be popular among celebrities like Sandra Bullock, Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def), Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie, John Goodman, Nicholas Cage, Beyonce who have also bought opulent, beautiful mansions – or churches – in the Garden District and the vicinity.
As for Nicholas Cage, he went so far with his obsession for everything New Orleans, that there is a pyramid shaped tomb waiting for him in St. Louis Cemetery when…the time is right.
Furthermore, until 2009 he owned the LaLaurie House, one of the most haunted mansions in the French Quarter, previously owned by Dr. Louis LaLaurie and his wife, Madame Delphine LaLaurie who used to gruesomly torture her slaves in the attic. The infamous story has been recreated for the American Horror Story “Covent” series with Kathy Bates as Madame Delphine. (And if you already saw AHS and appreciated Kathy’s amazing performance, I suggest you watch the 1990 film adaptation to Stephen King’s psychological horror novel “Misery”, whose last scene kept haunting me in my dreams for many years after I’d seen it)
Some of the most beautiful mansions of the Garden District are still reminiscent of the past. The whole area used to be a number of plantations sold in parcels to wealthy individuals who did not want to mingle with the Creoles in the French Quarter.
Some important landmarks are Commander’s Palace – the most exquisite restaurant in town, Women’s Guild of the New Orleans Opera Association mansion dating from 1859, Brevard-Rice House built in 1857 for Albert Hamilton Brevard and purchased by the novelist Anne Rice and her husband, the George Washington Cable House erected in 1874, the house used in the film “The curious case of Benjamin Button”, Buckner Mansion dating from 1856 and featured in American Horror Story – “Coven” etc.
Green Eyed Kisses,
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