Metairie Country Club

The country club opened in 1929, when Old Metairie was still new upscale tracts along a ridge. The ridge itself is ancient — a natural levee left by an old branch of the Mississippi, used as a path by the Acolapissa before French settlers arrived. Metairie Road follows that line. It's the oldest road in the New Orleans area. The club is private. You can't go in. What it did was shape the streets around it. Old Metairie wound itself through live oak canopies in deference to the club's footprint, and the real estate that followed became the most expensive in Jefferson Parish. Nearly a century later, the club is one of the oldest country clubs in the metro, and the neighborhood it anchored remains the wealthiest part of the parish. Drive Metairie Road along the perimeter. The oaks are thick, the streets curve, and you'll understand what a private gate and a 1920s land deal can do to a city's wealth map for a hundred years.