For 35 years the Preservation Resource Center in New Orleans has presented a tour of Garden District homes. I was visiting my daughter in Denver and was particularly sorry to miss this year’s tour because the 1860 era, 10,000 square foot mansion with the famed cornstalk and morning glory fence was one of the homes on the tour. But it was my good fortune that Times Picayune staff writer Judy Walker wrote about the house and photographer Chris Granger shot some great pictures for the article. I am indebted to them both.
The previous owners were friends so I’d been a guest on numerous occasions before the current owners, Hal Williamson and Dr. Dale Le Blanc purchased it in 1994. Hal Williamson is an interior designer and currently president of the PRC board. The house has a colorful history including serving as the home of the Reconstruction Era governor after Union forces occupied it in 1864. It was returned the following year to the original owner, Col. Robert H. Short, a cotton factor from Kentucky. The home was designed by Henry Howard. The double parlor with triple arches, Corinthian columns and 16 foot ceilings is a duplicate of Nottoway Plantation in White Castle, Louisiana. The house has seen notables from the arts as guest performers. Pablo Casals played in the music room and Sarah Bernhardt performed in the gardens.
One of the signature features of the decor of this manse is the wallpaper that adorns the stair hall. Williamson said he needed to break up the view from the front door through the entry hall to the dining room “because it was like looking down a football field.” He searched for two years before finding the paper which is a reproduction of a Brunswig & Fils pattern originally printed in 1820. It read like a stripe, but on closer inspection, turns out to be vertical ears of corn and swans. The predominate colors in the paper are cream, peach and bronze and are echoed in the decor. The swans repeat the ones in the dining room chandelier and sconces and of course, the corn replicates that in the famous fence.
Close observers will identify numerous references to Carnival; the face of Comus in a chest’s hardware, that of Bacchus carved on the legs of a French console, and my favorite, a figure of Hermes on top of the tall case clock. A collection of Carnival memorabilia resides in a large cabinet. Furnishing are mostly Louis XV amd XVI with some Empire and early Louisiana pieces.
The kitchen which I recall as in dire need of updating, is a replication of kitchens Williamson saw in French chateaus. The “Rolls Royce” of the room is a hand-made in France La Cornue double-sided stove. The kitchen has hosted many luminaries from the culinary world including Julia Child, Lee Bailey and James Beard.
Williamson and Le Blanc are both lovers of history and architecture and have compiled much history on the house. It’s only been owned by five families. “It never changed hands a lot, so it wasn’t fooled around with to make it something it wasn’t. It’s almost like the house has been a bond. I think it’s always been a happy house, one treasured by the people who live here,” Williamson said. It’s obvious that he and Le Blanc will continue that bond and the house is in good hands. The public is fortunate that they generously shared it with everyone during this holiday PRC home tour.
At Casart Coverings, we certainly appreciate these elaborate interiors that Hal Williams provides in his wonderful manse where the wallpaper stars.
– Lorre Lei
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