The Garden District neighbourhood features some of the most historic houses in the city. It runs across a 19-block area from St Charles Avenue to Magazine Street and from Jackson Avenue to Toledano Street. Every home holds a different design and many of them include memorial plaques detailing the building’s history. It’s a wonderful district to explore, especially if you are interested in archaic homes with many different architectural influences. Below I have detailed some of my favourite mansions to visit, along these wonderful oak lined streets:

The Soria Creel House

This mystical home located on Prytania Street was erected in around 1875 and was the house that was used in Anne Rice’s ‘Mayfair Witches’ TV series. For reference in the books Anne Rice used her own Greek Revivalist style home on First Street as the inspiration for the Mayfair Witches house, which is also worth a visit.

Address: 3102 Prytania St, New Orleans, LA 70115

Buckner Mansion

The Buckner Mansion was built for Henry Sullivan Buckner, a Kentucky-born cotton kingpin who wanted to rival the design of his ex-business partner’s home, ‘Stanton Hall’ in Natchez Mississippi. The Buckner Mansion is a grand two-storey structure with a beautiful frontage, featuring iconic columns and a cast iron gate with two large lanterns dominating the entrance. You may recognise the house from the well-known TV series American Horror Story as it featured as ‘Miss Robichaux’s Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies’ (the all-girls boarding school for witchcraft)!

Address: 1410 Jackson Ave, New Orleans, LA 70130

Briggs-Staub-Ripley House 

One of the few examples of Gothic Revival architecture in the city, the Briggs-Staub-Ripley House doesn’t follow the traditional aesthetic of other mansions in the Garden District and instead features stunning gothic arches, lancet windows and unique detailing. This unusually designed home, was built in 1849 for Cuthbert Bullitt, but following, (some say), the settlement of a large gambling debt he’d acquired he couldn’t pay for the house so the London born insurance agent Charles Briggs became its first owner.

Address: 2605 Prytania St, New Orleans, LA 70130

Women’s Opera Guild House

Originally built in 1858, this magnificent structure showcases mixed influences of Greek Revival and Italianate architecture. When the homeowner Nettie Kinney Seebold died in 1965 she left the property to the New Orleans Opera Women’s Guild and the space is now rented out for a variety of functions such as film shoots, weddings and private dinners with the proceeds going to support the association. As you admire this elegant mansion from behind the iron gate you will see the impressive octagonal turret which was added during the late 19th century and the wonderful detailing on this iconic double-galleried masterpiece. 

Address: 2504 Prytania St, New Orleans, LA 70130

Morris-Israel House & Carroll-Crawford House

The two neighbouring pink Italianate-style houses were designed by Samuel Jamison in the 1800’s and are today, still some of the most elegant houses in the garden district. The Carroll-Crawford House is more impressive in scale, with five bays in total and an additional carriage house. In my opinion, the arched windows and grey ornate wrought iron laced balconies give both properties a rather magical look.

Address: 1331 First St & 1315 First St, New Orleans, LA 70130

Colonel Short’s Villa

The Colonel Short’s Villa is also known as the Cornstalk Mansion, due to its iconic black iron fence with each post supporting a carefully casted cornstalk as the topper. The fence also features the morning glory motif and lines the full perimeter of the property. If you are in the French quarter also make sure to check out the Cornstalk Hotel which has a similar fence design by the same designers ‘Wood, Miltenberger & Company’. This Italian-Renaissance villa was designed for Colonel Robert Short by Henry Howard and is admired for its asymmetrical shaped design.

Address: 1448 Fourth Street, New Orleans LA 70130