Historic BK House by Boyd Cruise

by | Jan 7, 2025 | Antebellum New Orleans, Boyd Cruise, French Quarter, Historic BK House, Post Civil War

The Historic BK House is a local museum with an incredible story.

oil painting of yellow creole cottage in the 1860s, Historic BK House

Historic BK House by Boyd Cruise

This painting of the Historic BK House was Boyd Cruise’s last painting. He completed it in in 1962.The house is located at 1113 Rue Chartres (across from the Old Ursuline Convent).

Cruise painted numerous houses and buildings in the French Quarter, visualizing how they looked in the 19th Century. While most of Cruise’s works imagined the buildings in the 1850s, this one is post-war. Local auctioneer Joseph LeCarpentier commissioned François Correjolles for the design and James Lambert to build it. LeCarpentier sold the house in 1833. Dominique Lanata, a grocer, acquired the house in 1865. He didn’t live there, renting it out until selling it in 1904. Frances Parkinson Keyes (the “K” in “B-K”) acquired the house in 1945. She restored it and wrote a number of stories and novels while living there.
So, the B-K House has a rich history that naturally captured the imagination of Boyd Cruise. To start off the re-structuring of the NOLA History Guy Podcast, our first four-week series will be paintings by Boyd Cruise. Cruise received a number of commissions through government-sponsored programs. He painted houses and buildings in the Quarter as part of the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) program. What’s fantastic about Cruise is that he took technical drawings and modern photographs of Vieux Carré homes, then time-shifted them back to the 19th Century. He added people and activity, setting the viewer in an earlier New Orleans.

Timing

The specific timing of the view is interesting, in that the scene pre-dates Brevet Major PGT Beauregard’s time as a resident of the house. Beauregard honeymooned here with his second wife in 1860. He lived in the house after the war, until 1868. Beauregard then moved in with his son, René, at 934 Rue Royal. Since New Orleans’ direct involvement in the war ended in 1862, the port was operational and local businesses grew and thrived. Here’s the ​THNOC caption​ for the painting:

View of the Beauregard – Keyes house, 1113 Chartres Street in the Vieux Carre. The house has columns, portico and curved side staicases, and ornamental ironwork. Children play at the side of the house, and a fruit vendor and two women are in front of the house.

Let’s start with the children. Two kids play behind the gate to the Historic BK House’s side garden. A third tries to fly a kite on the sidewalk. Two women chat on the sidewalk, just down from the kite boy. What are they discussing? Are they connected to the house, or just passing by? The fruit vendor heads down Rue Chartres, selling his wares. He’s typical of vendors, walking through the streets, offering some convenience to folks who don’t have time to go to the market. Cruise regularly added children and animals to his scenes, providing the viewer with scale. A gentleman is on the first floor, calling on someone in the house. Is it the woman who answered the door? So many writing possibilities in a Boyd Cruise painting!

Podcasts

NOLA History Guy Podcast has a new format for 2025. We’re presenting series of pods with common themes. The first series, for January, 2025, features Boyd Cruise podcasts. You can hear the first in the series, about the Le Pretre Masion (also known as the “Sultan House”), on Dauphine Street and Orleans Avenue.

Boyd Cruise – 905 Toulouse in the 1850s

Boyd Cruise – 905 Toulouse in the 1850s

by | Oct 25, 2023 | Antebellum New Orleans, French Quarter

Then and now – 905 Toulouse Street

905 toulouse

Boyd Cruise painting of 905 Toulouse Street

Watercolor painting of the house at 905 Toulouse Street in the Vieux Carré. The artist, Boyd Cruise, captured a number of New Orleans scenes during his career. Here’s the THNOC caption:

Mid nineteenth century depiction of the facade of a two-story building with second floor gallery at 905 – 907 Toulouse in the Vieux Carre. There are people strolling in the foreground and a fruit vendor with cart is on the cobblestone street.

The time frame of this scene is New Orleans at its peak before the Southern Rebellion.The city influenced culture and commerce on both sides of the Atlantic. Cruise brings us back, placing us on Rue Toulouse. The WPA and other government agencies commissioned Cruise as part of projects to provide work for artists during the depression. Additionally, Cruise painted buildings for Historical American Buildings Survey (HABS) projects in the French Quarter.

The house today

Compare this Google Maps shot of 905 Toulouse today to Cruise’s scene. The building’s exterior remains essentially the same as when Cruise visualized it in 1947.

905 Toulouse stands in the block between Dauphine and Burgundy Streets. So, it’s a couple of blocks above the “tourist” sections of the neighborhood. While the building next to it (Dauphine and Toulouse) is an archive facility for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, this block isn’t full of t-shirt shops and bars. It’s possible to walk up Toulouse and take yourself back to the 1850s. The Black woman on the left, carrying a load of laundry on her head, is likely enslaved. Don’t lose sight of the realities of 1850s New Orleans. Cruise flashed back to this period from the 1930s and 1940s, a time of Jim Crow segregation. Like many artists, he combined a number of elements into a single block of the neighborhood. From the black boy sitting on a barrel, to an enslaved housekeeper, to white people strolling and shopping from a street vendor, there’s a lot here. The characters are quite accurate. Go walk down this block on your next visit to the Vieux Carré.