Home to priests, a vampire novelist, and a ghost rider
After the Louisiana Purchase, in 1803, Americans swarmed into New Orleans. There were, at the time, many ways to get stinking rich in the city: cotton, sugar, coffee, the slave trade, and anything to do with the shipping industry. The new arrivals were far from embraced by the Creole residents. Unwelcome in the French Quarter, they settled upriver in what’s now known as the Garden District. Here, they built huge Greek Revival, Italianate, and Queen Anne Victorian mansions.
Choose any street in this neighborhood to view stunning ornate houses with rich histories. Prytania Street’s collection includes Colonel Short’s Villa, used as the Yankees’ headquarters when they occupied New Orleans during the Civil War; the Women’s Opera Guild, the only home in the Garden District that provides regular tours; and a mansion at 2523 Prytania Street with a beautiful front-yard chapel. The latter was designed in 1857 by celebrated architect Jacques Nicolas Bussière de Pouilly. The 13-room,13,200-square-foot mansion includes six bedrooms, four kitchens, and an elevator. There’s a 33-foot-long walk-in closet and a spa tub surrounded by Greek columns set in the center of one of the five bathrooms.
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Address 2523 Prytania Street, New Orleans, LA 70130 | Hours Not open to the public; viewable from the outside only| Tip Take a walk down nearby Coliseum St between Fourth St and Washington Ave to see a row of five identical Greek Revival houses built in 1861 by architect William Freret. They became known as Freret’s Folly because the Civil War broke out as construction of the houses was nearing completion, and home values tanked, leaving Freret in the red. Hard to imagine such a history when you consider one of the homes was on the market for $2.6 million in 2014.
After the Civil War, the Redemptorist Fathers bought the house and converted it into a residence for older priests. They added the chapel built into the front-yard fence. The vine-covered cast-iron pavilion still has "Our Mother of Perpetual Help" in big letters topped with a large gold cross. The chapel served the parish until 1996, when the house was sold to Anne Rice. She never lived there, but her novel Violin is set in the house. She sold it to antiques dealer Reuban “Buzz” Harper who, in turn, sold it to actor Nicolas Cage. Cage, like Rice, once had multiple homes in New Orleans. Reportedly owing millions in back taxes, he had to sell them all.
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