Mary Mahoney's Old French House

In 1737, French colonist Louis Frasier built a house on the Gulf Coast frontier using hand-made brick, cypress wooden-pegged columns, and slate roof ballast carried from France in sailing ships. The high ceilings echoed the architecture of New Orleans' Vieux Carré. A brick-walled cellar — unusually dry for this region — once held books. French Governor Jean Baptiste Bienville commanded the Louisiana Territory from this location. The building predates American independence by more than thirty years. The property changed hands through French, Spanish, German, and English ownership before the Louisiana Purchase. By 1962, when Mary Mahoney, her husband Bob, and her brother Andrew Cvitanovich converted the building to a restaurant, it had stood through 225 years of Gulf Coast weather. They kept the exposed brick walls, the heart-pine floors, and the open fireplaces. Local tradition holds that Mary, daughter of Croatian shrimpers, opened wearing an evening gown in 1964. Longtime residents say she served crab claws to President Reagan on the White House lawn in 1984, and that Presidents Carter and Bush ate here. It's said that five feet of Katrina water filled the dining room in 2005, and they reopened in sixty-six days. The story passed down is that three generations of the family still run it. The brick-walled cellar now stores wine. The building still stands on Rue Magnolia in downtown Biloxi — one of the oldest structures on the Gulf Coast, still serving dinner. Reservations recommended.