Garden District Villa

Grande Dame: Restored Central Hall Villa is Rare New Orleans Classic

An icon of New Orleans residential architecture favored by well-heeled Southerners of the 1800s, this elegant, Greek-Revival-styled grande dame is built around an impressive central hall, a grand foyer under 14-foot molded ceilings. The preserved, circa 1838 home stands true to style, elevated a half-story above ground and fronted by a deep, colonnaded veranda, ideal for classic Southern porch sitting.

Restored by dedicated preservationists specializing in 19th-century regional architecture, this home is quintessentially New Orleans, with its flickering gas lamps, wraparound porches, and original wood floors, molding, and wainscotting. The property has had several movie cameos, occupies a classic French garden with a saline swimming pool out back, and is enchantingly and appropriately shabby chic, offering that lost-in-time, slightly mysterious charm that defines lyrical, mythical New Orleans.

AROUND

Set around Coliseum Square, Nola’s Lower Garden District is more eclectic than its stately Upper Garden District neighbor. Neoclassical residences are set deeply into well-manicured lots on streets with classical names like Dryades, Melpomene, and Terpishore. Fittingly, the home is Greek Revival style, surrounded by carved boxwood hedges behind a well-patinaed wrought iron gate. The houses of the Lower Garden District are surprisingly older than the mansions of the Upper District, built in the early part of the 19th century, when New Orleans was growing upriver from the famed French Quarter. 

Magazine Street is the principal neighborhood thoroughfare, offering a typically ecelectic selection of boutiques, salons, restaurants, and cafes, ranging from retro to reservations-only. Stretching for six miles from Uptown, through downtown and into the Lower Garden District, Magazine Street follows the curve of the Mississippi River and is named for its origins in the 1700s when the street became home to shops, or a “rue de magasins,” though others credit the name to a Colonial-era ammunition magazine that once occupied the area. Most of the shops and galleries along Magazine are of the locally-owned and operated variety, and the street’s bars rival the number of restaurants. This is hedonistic New Orleans, after all! There are low brow dive bars, trendy breweries and distilleries, and fancier cocktail lounges for letting the bon temps rouler!

LOCATION

New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Nearest airport: New Orleans (25-30 minutes)

BEST TIME TO VISIT: October to April