Garden District New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, USA
The Garden District of New Orleans is a leafy residential neighborhood that has been fashionable since the 1830s, containing around 1,000 historic luxury homes dating from before the Civil War to the early 20th century.
National Register Description
The following text is courtesy of the National Register of Historic Places, a program of the National Parks Service. Minor transcription errors or changes in formatting may have occurred; please see the Nomination Form for official text. Some information may have become outdated since the property was nominated for the Register.
The Garden District is composed of examples of architecture ranging from the finest examples of 19th Century Greek Revival, to Georgian, to "Southern Colonial", to French chateau and provincial styles, and even to a Swiss chalet. There is Gothic, and there is early and late Victorian, even Steamboat Gothic. Of course, there is contemporary, but even this harbors some semblance of an attempt to harmonize with the surroundings.
The streets are tree-shaded. Many of the earliest gutters, lined with slate slabs from Pennsylvania, remain. A number of early 1830's and 40's small houses remain, testifying to the varying incomes of the early dwellers in the Garden District. All was not affluence.
Many of the small homes are untouched, giving fine representation to the wide range of architectural modes of the original Garden District, such, as: the "shot-gun" and "camel-back" designs, indigenous to New Orleans and environs The gardens are still profuse, although not as large as they were when the district received its name, as the estates are largely contracted. However, the same semi-tropical climate prevails in which the foliage and flowers grow so abundantly and in many varieties.
There is a quaintness, a stillness, a prevailing quiet and gentility of the original Garden District which sets it apart, not only from the other sections of the Crescent City, but from anything like it in America. A recent visitor, an editor of England's Country Life, said there was nothing like it anywhere, even in England or France.
National Register Statement of Significance
The following text is courtesy of the National Register of Historic Places, a program of the National Parks Service. Minor transcription errors or changes in formatting may have occurred; please see the Nomination Form for official text. Some information may have become outdated since the property was nominated for the Register.
The Garden District of New Orleans is perhaps one of the most complete assemblages of architectural styles in one location in America. It is truly a "museum" of living, covering the period of, roughly, the 1830's to the present. Its antebellum mansions incorporate the finest in local traditions.
The fact that there are so many still in their original appearance is, in itself, completely unique. The Garden District has been recognized for nearly 150 years as one of the choicest, most desirable living areas in America, and it is still. It is studied, imitated, written about, photographed, and visited continually, being one of the two main tourist attractions in this historic city. Ownership of property in the Garden District is highly valued, both as a status symbol, and as an investment.
The historic importance of the Garden District lies in the people who have lived in the many remaining mansions, quite a number still in the original families. Great names in industry, finance, law, medicine, and in politics have graced the shaded banquettes of the area. Civil War generals retired to the Garden District, and Jefferson Davis died in one of the great houses.
There are so many stories which can be authentically told about the Garden District and its homes that the section has intrigued writers of the past and present, including Mark Twain, George W. Cable (who lived there), Walt Whitman, and Grace King, down to Truman Capote, Shirley Ann Grau, and now a new novel by James K. Feibleman.