This year will mark the sad six-year anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina. The once-beautiful city of New Orleans saw most of its residents uprooted by this calamity, and its historic neighborhoods flooded and almost destroyed. And what great neighborhoods they were--full of lovely homes built in architectural styles rarely found anywhere else in the United States. Truly historic too--out of 11,000 buildings in the Uptown area, 82 percent were built prior to 1935! As the resilient residents of this city continue to rebuild, the hope continues that the Big Easy will be fully restored to its former splendor. And for those who have never visited this great city, here is a quick look at the two architectural styles that have for years defined the streetscapes of New Orleans;
This is the signature house type of the Big Easy. The Shotgun House is a narrow, rectangular dwelling, usually one-room wide and two, three or four-rooms deep. The entrance is on the narrow end of the home, facing the street. There is usually a small porch supported by columns, and the facade bristles with Victorian jigsaw ornamentation. The Shotgun House usually has only one story, but there is a variant, called "camel back," with a smaller second story set toward the rear of the house. And where does the Shotgun House get its unusual name? It is said that because the rooms and doors line up, if you fired a shotgun at the house, the shot would just pass through without hitting anything. Hopefully, no one has tested this theory....
In 1788 and 1794 two large fires destroyed much of the French Colonial architecture in New Orleans. The city was rebuilt in a distinctive Creole style, a mixture of French and Spanish influences. The Creole Townhouse, is a two-to-four-story structure, set right at the sidewalk. Normally, the ground level houses a store, and the living quarters are located in the upper levels. The steeply pitched side-gabled roof often features dormers. The passageway from the street to the courtyard is usually very narrow, often wide enough for just one person to walk through. The signature "item" for the Creole Townhouse is the wrought-iron balcony (or balconies), which makes this architectural style easy to identify.
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