April 2024

A diminutive Spanish Colonial cottage demolished around the end of 1917 played a major role in the development of French Quarter historic preservation. This is the first in a new FQJ series, “Preservation Chronicles.”

– by James G. Derbes

A note from Jim Derbes;  As a shared community value, historic preservation in New Orleans will be one hundred years old next year. In this series, I hope to relate and place in historical context some of the more significant developments that have occurred along the way.

The Little Cottage With a Major Impact

A little more than a hundred years ago, a modest Spanish Colonial cottage in the Vieux Carre was bulldozed and later replaced by a gas station – with little protest. Two decades later, controversy over signage for the service station resulted in an important precedent in the legal authority of historic preservation.

The cottage was one of several demolitions that occurred in the old city in the first three decades of the 20th century.  The losses happened before – and after – a new commission was established in 1925 to advocate for the preservation of the Quarter’s historic buildings.

Even the shell of the venerable Old French Opera House, which had burned in 1919, was demolished in 1928 without objection from the new historic commission. And, although the neighborhood had become home to a thriving colony of literati and artists, there was no public outcry. These losses were among the many ironies of an era when a consensus for historic preservation was developing but remained ill-defined.

In the past, the demolition of the Chaplains’ Cottage has been dated from the mid-1920s to as late as 1933. Yet recently uncovered evidence reveals it was destroyed around the end of 1917 or the beginning of 1918 and its demolition likely figured into the move to create the first Vieux Carré Commission in 1925.

The first clue to discovering the true date of demolition is an Ellsworth Woodward etching of the cottage that was published in Grace King’s 1921 book, Creole Families of New Orleans. It is clearly labeled: “Ursulines and Chartres Street. Built in the time of Bienville – now demolished.”

Two other images, from 1917, show the cottage with two sides of its roof stripped of barrel tiles. Although the building itself looks sound enough, it seems abandoned and forlorn. If demolition was imminent – as it appears – the tiles would have been stripped first for salvage.

The photographs, part of the Collins C. Diboll Vieux Carré Digital Survey at The Historic New Orleans Collection, are credited to the Journal of the American Institute of Architects. A bit more digging uncovered a digital version of Volume 6 of the journal, from 1918. It includes an article titled “Demolition in New Orleans.” It’s a sad obituary for the cottage and other landmarks disappearing from the heart of the city.

Underscoring the loss is the fact that the 1797 - 1798 building was an important vestige of New Orleans’ Spanish Colonial period (1763 – 1803). The lots on which it was situated formed part of the property purchased at auction[1] for the Community of Ursuline in 1797 by Don Andres Almonester y Roxas, the principal benefactor of Spanish New Orleans. In the final year of his life, the cottage was built on the lot, probably for the community of Ursuline nuns across the street.

The Ursulines were among the first of the Catholic orders to arrive in the French Colony of Louisiana, in 1727.  Their neoclassical convent was completed in 1753 and is now a National Historic Landmark— “the finest surviving example of French colonial public architecture in the country.”[2]  From this convent, the nuns educated girls and operated a hospital.

The Chaplains’ Cottage across the street was occupied by priests who celebrated Mass in the chapel of Our Lady of Consolation[3] on the convent grounds. The cottage was built with bricked-between-posts construction (briquette-entre-poteaux), and contained several rooms.  It featured a traditional barrel-tile hip roof – common for Spanish Colonial buildings – and an overhang supported by a colonnade.

The Chaplain’s Cottage passed through several hands over the next 130 years.[4] Although badly in need of repair, it was in relatively stable condition when it was demolished.

By 1929, a filling station was in operation at the site.  A quintessential 20th-century use in service of the automobile had been plopped down amidst one of the most important arrays of 19th-century buildings in the country.

The Vieux Carré Commission of 1925 had not been created when the cottage was demolished.  And in any case that first commission was advisory only and had no jurisdiction over the square block in which the cottage was located.

Twenty years later it was a different story.  Under a new regulatory commission, all exterior changes required a permit. The inauspicious controversy over the sign size for the 20th-century filling station that had replaced the cottage became a landmark in historic preservation litigation.

Establishment of the Vieux Carré Commission

The loss of the Chaplains’ cottage helped rekindle interest in the significance of the architectural and cultural heritage of New Orleans — a heritage that had been overlooked or forgotten for a generation. 

Several notable leaders in the new preservation movement emerged, including brothers William and Ellsworth Woodward, artists whose documentation of losses to the architectural fabric of the original city raised awareness. William Ratcliff Irby, a banker and philanthropist, made many anonymous gifts to the cause of historic preservation. He’s best known for his purchase of the lower Pontalba building in 1921, which he bequeathed to the Louisiana State Museum on his death in 1926.

Women – who had just been granted the right to vote in 1920 – began forming preservation groups in New Orleans and across the country, inspired by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association which had successfully saved and restored the dilapidated home of George Washington. In New Orleans, the burgeoning preservation movement in the 1920s and 1930s was led by two women.

Elizebeth[5] T. Werlein, who lived from 1882 to 1946, worked in tandem with Miss Grace King (1850 - 1932) to preserve the cultural heritage of New Orleans. King was a popular New Orleans-born novelist, who became the first president of Le Petit Salon, the women’s club that still occupies its home at 620 St. Peter Street.

Werlein was a privileged, beautiful, Michigan socialite who had married a local music store owner and moved to New Orleans in 1908. Although she lived Uptown, [6]where she and her husband raised a family, many of her activities focused on the Quarter, where, after the death of her husband Philip in 1917, she eventually purchased and occupied a building in the 600 block of St. Ann.

In 1925, King spearheaded the establishment of the first VCC. Because it had no power and its decisions were advisory only, the commission was largely ineffective. Yet, it was a learning experience for the community and served as a model for the current commission, which came a decade later.

As stated previously, the first version of the Vieux Carre Commission could not have prevented the demolition of the Chaplains’ Cottage, even if it’d been in place at the time. Although neglected, the small building was a gem, built with distinctive Spanish Colonial characteristics.  Construction was roughly contemporaneous with the reconstruction of the Cabildo, the Presbytere, and the second church of St. Louis – all of which were extensively damaged in the fires of 1788 and 1794. 

Had the cottage remained, its early vintage and unique details would have made it essential to the tout ensemble of the French Quarter. As more neighborhood demolitions and egregious alterations occurred in the wake of that destruction, it became obvious to preservationists that the 1925 VCC ordinance needed teeth:  Advisory powers alone wouldn’t safeguard the Quarter.

In 1936, Werlein helped pass a proposed constitutional amendment that defined the new regulatory powers of the commission and extended its jurisdiction to the present boundaries. Louisiana voters approved the amendment later that year, and in 1937, a city ordinance was enacted to implement the constitutional provision. Today, the Vieux Carre Commission still operates under these provisions, which authorize and empower it to preserve the historic French Quarter.

Precedent-Setting Challenges

In the forty years that followed the establishment of the VCC, its authority would be challenged in four Louisiana lawsuits.  City v Pergament (1941) was the second.

Without a permit as required by the VCC ordinance, the filling station operator replaced his sign, which had been grandfathered in when the Commission was established.  The new sign was many times larger than the original — and impermissibly larger – than Commission regulations allowed.

The case is noteworthy not only for its holding but for the famous language of its author, Louisiana Chief Justice Charles A. O’Niell:

“The purpose of the ordinance is not only to preserve the old buildings themselves, but to preserve the antiquity of the whole French and Spanish quarter, the tout ensemble, so to speak, by defending this relic against iconoclasm or vandalism.”

The gas station owner’s arguments were basically the same as those made in the Impastato (also 1941), Levy (1953), and Maher (1975) litigation: the property owners argued that regulation of private property under the constitutional amendment and ordinance was unreasonable, a violation of due process and/or equal protection or taking of private property without just compensation.

The most recent of the challenges, in Maher v City of New Orleans, was also the most sustained: 12 years, three Louisiana state courts and two U. S. Courts. The final chapter ended in 1975 in the U. S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Maher ruling was the first reported federal appeals case to address the constitutionality of a historic preservation ordinance.  That decision upheld the denial to Vieux Carré property owners of their request to demolish a side-galleried Victorian double cottage at 818-22 Dumaine St.

In the place of the cottage, Maher proposed to build a modern, raised complex of seven apartments with parking at ground level.  The change would occasion not only a loss to the prevailing architectural fabric, but the proposed new construction would introduce an inappropriate 20th C. visual element.

Ironically, the VCC initially approved the demolition and new construction.  The Vieux Carre Property Owners & Associates appealed that decision to the City Council, which reversed the commission. The Dumaine Street cottage remains and continues to contribute to the neighborhood.

In the federal litigation, Maher’s claims were evaluated according to the precedent established by Impastato, Pergament, and Levy, and the demolition was refused.

In 1926, the United States Supreme Court approved the constitutionality of the application of zoning to private property.[7]  It would be another fifty-two years (1978) until that Court granted the same approval to historic preservation regulations – in the Grand Central Terminal litigation.

In doing so it cited Morris G. Maher v City of New Orleans.

Our Vieux Carré served as a crucible in the development of a legal framework to preserve historic resources – and then as a watershed in defending challenges to that framework.

1920s to 2020s

The story of historic preservation in the Vieux Carré began over one hundred years ago.  It includes several milestones:

●     The first historic preservation commission in the nation.

●     The second regulatory historic preservation commission in the nation and successful preservation litigation

●     The first reported federal appeals court decision on the subject

The Chaplains’ Cottage has played a significant role. And while it wasn’t saved from demolition, there is a somewhat satisfying ending, nonetheless.

In 1983, the lot of the Pergament filling station was purchased; and under the supervision of the VCC, a multi-unit townhouse building with a patio was constructed, one that references the historic buildings around it. 

 Writer’s note: Thanks to Sally K. Reeves and Lawrence Powell for guidance and suggestions in the preparation of the article and to Heather Green, Head of Reader Services at THNOC's Williams Research Center, and  research assistant Paul Drake. Jim Derbes may be reached at jgd@jamesderbes.com.

Next Preservation Chronicle: The elevated riverfront expressway controversy - how the Vieux Carré dodged a bullet.

[1] The lots were part of a parcel of the “goods of Rafael Ramos,” auctioned on August 19, 1797.

[2] National Historic Landmark summary listing

[3] The chapel itself was erected (c. 1786) with funds donated by Almonester.

[4]After Almonester’s death in 1798, his widow, Marie-Louise Denis de La Ronde Almonester, transferred the property to the Community. The Ursulines then transferred it briefly to a Mr. Olivier, described as an ecclesiastic, on February 16, 1816, but by an Act of Retrocession on March 21, 1816, title to the property was returned to the CommunityIn 1824 the nuns moved from the Vieux Carre and transferred the convent property to the Archdiocese. They sold the chaplain’s cottage to Hugues Pedesclaux and Felix Labatut in 1834. The complete chain of title can be found here on the Diboll Survey. 

[5] correctly spelled with an “e” in the middle

[6] In 1940, Werlein moved to a Vieux Carre residence that she had purchased in 1926.

[7] Village of Euclid v Ambler Realty, 272 U. S. 365 (1926)