Beauregard-Keyes House

François Correjolles designed this house in 1826 for auctioneer Joseph LeCarpentier, combining Creole cottage forms with Greek Revival flourishes — a Palladian façade fronting the street, traditional Creole interiors and rear galleries behind it. The architecture itself is a treaty between French Quarter tradition and the American convention of a central hall. In 1833, Consul of Switzerland John A. Merle became the owner; his wife, Anais Philippon, added the adjoining garden. Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard rented rooms here from 1866 to 1868, a twice-widowed veteran who refused to take the loyalty oath to the Union. He had honeymooned briefly in the house years earlier with his second wife, Caroline Deslonde, daughter of a St. James Parish sugar planter. She died in 1864. By 1925, a new owner wanted to tear down the house to erect factories; local women formed the Beauregard Memorial Association to preserve it, though the garden could not be saved. In the 1940s, novelist Frances Parkinson Keyes bought the house and made it her working residence. Her bestseller *Dinner at Antoine's* put the restaurant back on the national map and revived interest in Creole dining culture. She also wrote *Madame Castel's Lodger*, a 1962 novel set in this house with Beauregard as its central character, exploring his emotional struggles as a twice-widowed Civil War veteran. *The Chess Players* followed, based on chess champion Paul Morphy — grandson of the original owner, LeCarpentier. Keyes hired architect Richard Koch in 1945 to begin restoration and worked with the Garden Study Club to replant the garden to its 1830s–1860s appearance and rebuild the brick wall surrounding it. That formal parterre garden remains one of the most photographed courtyards in the Quarter. The house is open for guided tours Monday through Saturday. You'll see Beauregard family items, Keyes's writing studio, and her collections of dolls and rare porcelain veilleuses. The Nous Foundation, promoting Louisiana's French and Creole-speaking cultures, operates here now.