Camelback House Form — Uptown

Property taxes in 1870s New Orleans were assessed on the number of stories visible from the street. The camelback house was the answer — a shotgun with a two-story addition at the back, the hump hidden behind a single-story façade. From the sidewalk, you see a one-story cottage. The second floor exists only where the assessor can't see it. The form solved a real problem. Shotgun lots in Uptown are narrow. Families grew. Rebuilding from scratch meant losing the house you had. The camelback let you add up without tearing down. The addition went where the street couldn't see it, and the tax bill stayed flat. Thousands survive across Uptown and Carrollton. The form is uniquely New Orleans — nowhere else needed it, and nowhere else built it. Walk the residential blocks between Magazine Street and St. Charles Avenue and watch the rooflines. The jump at the rear is the tell. What looks like a single story from the front reveals its second floor only when you're halfway down the block. It's a citywide inside joke, written in wood and tax law, still standing.