Parkview, Faubourg St. John will be showcased in PRC's Spring Home Tour

Jul 02, 2023

A collection of historic homes in the Parkview and Bayou St. John neighborhoods will be open to the public April 22 and 23, the weekend before Jazz Fest, for the Preservation Resource Center's Spring Home Tour.

In its Spring Home Tour, the PRC showcases homes that have been adapted for 21st century lives without sacrificing the integrity of the 19th and early-20th century architecture.

The tour opens the doors to eight carefully renovated homes, plus some bonus buildings in historic Parkview and Bayou St. John.

The Parkview neighborhood, well-situated between City Park and Bayou St. John, was developed in the 20th century, after the introduction of the screw pump in 1913 allowed engineers to drain the city's marshland. It favors the Arts and Crafts movement in the irregular layout of its streets and the graceful asymmetry of its architecture. The city named Parkview a historic district in 2017.

On the other side of the bayou, Faubourg St. John, part of the Esplanade Ridge historic district, is on higher land that historians say contained the city's first European settlement. Some buildings date to the late 1700s and early 1800s, although houses from the late 19th and early 20th centuries now dominate the neighborhood.

The annual Spring Home Tour is a fundraiser for the Preservation Resource Center. Money generated from the tour supports the PRC's education and outreach, advocacy, revival grants and other programs that work to preserve New Orleans’ historic architecture, neighborhoods and cultural identity.

Here's what participants will see on the tour.

This century-old bungalow sat vacant for decades before the current owners gutted and rebuilt it, Sarah Bonnette writes in Preservation in Print. They brought it down to the studs but used the original framing, incorporated much of the historic materials and maintained the informal aesthetic.

This 1922 Craftsman raised basement home had been converted into a convent before the current owners bought it from the archdiocese. They kept the historic elements of the building as they returned it to its original role as a single-family home with a ground-floor apartment.

Although the Mediterranean Revival-style raised basement house had been home to four families before the current owners purchased it, most of its original features remained intact. Avid preservationists, the owners turned it into whimsical, period-appropriate home for themselves and their young sons.

The center-hall cottage on Moss Street, overlooking Bayou St. John, had sat vacant for years when the current owners took it on. It dates to the 1880s, with Craftsman details added in 1918 renovation, Bonnette writes. The center hall layout and many of the original elements have been preserved, such as fireplaces, cypress siding and heart pine flooring.

This Desoto Street house does not fit any standard architectural style, its owners told the PRC's Susan Langenhennig, and that's what charmed them. As they peeled away layers, the owners determined it had started life as a simple barge-board fishing camp, with a significant expansion in the late 19th century, Langenhennig writes in Preservation in Print.

This house was transformed from a 1959 one-story ranch into a contemporary rendition of a two-story West Indies style building with a wrap-around porch. The mid-century building, originally part of the renovationplans, was crumbling. So only its well-engineered foundation was used, and the mid-century bricks became the front columns.

The owners have renovated hundreds of New Orleans homes with their company Inhab Group, but they did not expect what they found in the apparent 1920s raised Craftsman double, Bonnette writes in Preservation in Print. Brick-between-post construction and barge board framing was uncovered beneath layers of plaster, and cypress appeared under the heart pine flooring. They date the original construction to between 1813 and 1830.

This bonus building is a Craftsman shotgun double in the Parkview historic district. Half is headquarters for the Palm New Orleans, and the other half is one-bedroom residence. The renovation kept many original elements and added a wealth of interesting wallpaper.

The Pitot House is one of the few West Indies-style Creole houses remaining in Louisiana, It was home to the first U.S. mayor of New Orleans, James Pitot, and his family from 1810 to 1819.

Dedicated in 1906 as part of the Sacred Heart Orphan Asylum, this chapel is where St. Frances Xavier Cabrini slept, meditated and prayed while visiting New Orleans. In 2019, Archbishop Gregory Aymond officially designated its Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini bedroom and exhibit room as a local shrine.

WHEN: Saturday & Sunday, April 22-23, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each dayWHERE: Tour headquarters will be at Cabrini High School, 1400 Moss St.TICKETS:Advance tickets: $25 for PRC members, $30 for non-members. Available at here at PRCNO.org. Advance ticket sales end at noon on Friday, April 21.Day-of-tour tickets: $35 for members and non-members. Available at the tour headquarters, Cabrini High School, 1400 Moss St.