by nolahistoryguy | Nov 20, 2025 | Antebellum New Orleans, Architecture, French Quarter, Plan Boks
The Porte-cochère is a common architectural feature in the French Quarter.
Porte-cochère homes
Plan book for a “store-house” on Royal Street, between Iberville and Canal Streets. From A Pattern Book of New Orleans Architecture:
Plan book 95, folio 26, New Orleans Notarial Archives, February 16, 1853, unsigned. Royal between Canal and Customhouse, backed by Bourbon Street. The lot size is about 36 feet by 159 feet. The estimated building date is 1830. The sign over the wide door on the left reads, “Sewell T. Taylor.” This porte-cochère storehouse features handsom, double-paneled, square-headed doors on the right, opening to an elliptical arched passageway.
Many townhouses in New Orleans feature a porte-cochère in lieu of a classic front door. Here’s Toledano’s description of the feature:
Two or three story building with a wide carriageway is especially suitable for the twenty-first century. It allows off-street parking and a courtyard or patio, with a rear entrance stairway to the living quarters above.
While it’s referred to as a carriageway, Creole townhouses didn’t usually store a carriage in the back. The more common use case was to back a carriage into the entrance, to provide cover for riders during inclement weather. Most Quarter residents didn’t stable horses at their homes, either. Horses occupy a lot of space. There were a number of buildings that served as stables. Your coachman dropped you off at home, then took the horse and carriage off to another location.
Additionally, residents of the townhouse accessed the building via the door on the left side. This door led to an alleyway connecting the sidewalk to the courtyard. Household staff, usually enslaved people at the time of this plan book, could come and go through this separate entrance.
Now a hotel
Alas, this “store-house” Ain’t There No More. This block of Royal now contains the Wyndham New Orleans – French Quarter Hotel. Many will remember this location from when it was a Holiday Inn.
Step back in time
Stepping through the Porte-cochère at Sylvain on Chartres Street. (Sylvain photo)
My favorite example of a porte-cochère is Sylvain Restaurant, located at 625 Chartres. We pass by Sylvain when I lead the Friends of the Cabildo French Quarter Walking Tour on an “up-river” walk. Since the building is a restaurant, it’s easy for visitors to walk through the carriageway to the courtyard (and the restaurant’s entrance). Close your eyes and imagine the master of the house coming into the porte-cochère on his horse, dismounting, and continuing into the courtyard. As we know, the courtyard was the center of family life in these New Orleans homes.
by nolahistoryguy | Sep 26, 2025 | Architecture, Enslavement, French Quarter, French-Spanish Colonial
Old Vieux Carré like Merieult House live on under the stewardship of nonprofits.
The Merieult House, 533 Rue Royale
Painting by Jim Blanchard. THNOC record: “View of the façade of the Merieult House, now the Historic New Orleans Collection. Painted between January 1 and April 14, 1993.”
The Merieult House dates to 1794. The house currently houses the headquarters of The Historic New Orleans Collection. From THNOC’s timeline of the house:
1792: Merchant Jean François Merieult purchases the plot at auction, three years after a devastating fire destroys 80 percent of the colonial city, including the early- and mid-colonial structures on the site. Merieult signs a contract with William Cobb for 7,200 pieces of lumber to be floated down the river from Natchez. Merieult contracts with builders Jacob Cowperthwaite and Robert Jones to lead the construction.
Like many living in New Orleans after the Great Fire of 1788, Merieult acquired property and helped re-build the city. Builders completed the main house in 1794. They finished the dependency wings in 1797.
Enslavement
While THNOC refers to Merieult as a “merchant,” they overlook the part where he bought and sold people. Also from their timeline of the house:
1795–97: Supporting buildings surrounding the rear courtyard are constructed to serve as a service area, counting house, warehouse, and slave pens for Merieult’s merchant business. Between 1792 and 1812, Merieult bought and sold over 400 enslaved Africans on this site.
Four hundred enslaved Africans. Slave pens. Merieult was a big player in human trafficking.
Changes and renovations
Originally of a Spanish Colonial design, Merieult House underwent renovations under later ownership. From a Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) in the 1930s:
Lizardi Hermanos (Lizardi Brothers) acquired the property in 1832 Antonio Maria Pintado, possibly the Lieutenant Surveyor of the district of Iberville, who has left such a valuable collection of papers, seems to have taken the house on terms he could not fulfill, and three years later, it reverted to Lizardi Hermanos, at a price of $80,000. This increase in price indicated that during these three years the house was reconditioned, and the Classic Revival details were substituted for the original Spanish mouldings, and the square granite openings were substituted for the original arches.
The house was about forty years old when these changes took place. Preserving Spanish Colonial architecture was not a concern in the growing, booming New Orleans of the 1830s and 1840s.
Headquarters
Kemper and Leila Williams acquire the house in 1938. They embark on a major renovation project. The Williams family were founders of THNOC. They open the the house to the public in 1970.
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by nolahistoryguy | Aug 29, 2025 | 1920s-1930s, Architecture, French Market, French Quarter
New Orleans French Market 1925 underwent a significant re-design.
French Market 1925
Architectural rendering of the “new” French Market 1925. While the market buildings had undergone minor, quick-fix, repairs since the 1880s, the market required a major facelift by this time. Sam Stone’s firm won the bid for the design. Among many Stone designs in the Central Business District (CBD), the 13-story Maison Blanche Building remains the most-visible.
Public Market
The French Market anchored the city’s Public Market system. The location pre-dates the French colony as a trading post. The indigenous gathered here long before Jean-Baptiste LeMoyne chose the site for his city. Unlike many towns, the market extended along the riverbank. The French and Spanish didn’t change this. So, the locals accessed the market via streets (and later, street railways) as well as boats.
Stone’s design
Sam Stone’s design suggested a major change to the French Market. He proposed building a new structure directly across the street from Jackson Square. The left side of the rendering shows the square’s iron fence and main gate. Across the street stands a “new” Butchers’ Market. The proposal never materialized. The city maintained a clear line of sight from St. Louis Cathedral to the river since 1728.
So, with that exception, the new plan moved forward. The Butchers’ Market remaind in the first building, behind the Cafe’ du Monde Coffee Stand.
Public Market to Retail
Stone’s incarnation of the market stands to this day. The French Market endured several changes in the last century. While this design continued the functionality of the post-Civil War market, commercial air conditioning changed how New Orleanians made groceries in that next decade. A/C allowed the butchers and fishmongers to operate longer each day. Neighborhood groceries installed coolers and their own butcher counters. Locals didn’t have to go to the public markets early in the morning to get fresh meat and poultry. The “truck farmers” designed their own distribution systems to provide those local stores with fresh produce, but that wasn’t as critical. The Vegetable Market continued into mid-century.
The 1920s buildings required renovations and upgrades by the 1980s. Mayor Dutch Morial’s administration supervised that work, which is why part of the back path through the market bears his name, “Dutch Alley.”
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