2000 Franklin - Historic St. Roch

The house at 2000-02 Franklin Avenue, built by Victor Mallu in 1906-07, goes to Sheriff Sale on September 6th due to a code enforcement lien.  Our House Stories continues its commitment to highlight vacant and blighted historic properties going through the city auction processes to save them from further neglect.

Like nearly every property in New Orleans, we can trace the history of the lot back much farther than the house itself.  The square of ground was among the first laid off into lots during the initial subdivision of Faubourg Franklin in 1836.  The oversize map of eleven lots in the new faubourg, drawn by the engineer Schreiber, is now at the Notarial Archives.  The size, condition, and age of that map made it difficult to photograph.  The image at left, however, taken from an act recording the sale of the lot from Theodore Seghers to Thomas Kavanaugh contains a copy of the relevant section of the older map [Lisbony, J. Vol. 12, Act 392, Dec. 29, 1853].  Kavanaugh paid a grand total of $61.25 for the entire square, including a paltry $9.50 for the lot where 2000-02 Franklin stands today, labeled #24 on the map, forming the corner of Promenade Franklin and Rue Celestine (now Franklin Avenue and North Johnson).

Times-Picayune October 3, 1906, p. 10.

Between that 1853 sale and Victor Mallu's purchase of the property in 1906, the property changed hands eight times.  Mallu paid $300 for two lots, now labeled lots 10 & 11 on square 1017, in October, 1906.  Whether or not any of the previous owners intended to build on the corner, they had failed to do so.  Mallu, however, had the building permit in hand before he even signed the papers to purchase the land.  According to the report of the City Engineer, the construction cost $1200.

Times-Picayune, July 12, 1917

Mallu doubled his initial investment when he sold the new building to Louis Artigue on March 3, 1911, for $3200.  Artigue, it seems, had a string of rotten luck during his ownership of the corner lot.  He operated a grocery out of the left side for many years, apparently choosing to lease the space once he purchased the building.  The City Directories list him living elsewhere while a succession of grocers and other merchants occupied the building at 2000 Franklin Avenue.  An article reporting the death of Louis Artigues son, George, on November 15, 1912, states, "Mr.[Louis] Artigue until recently kept a grocery store at Franklin and Johnson streets...The family is well known and respected in the city, especially in the lower district, where Mr. Artigue, the senior, has spent a great portion of his life" [Times Picayune, November 15, 1912, p. 6].  A fire in the rear warehouse that served the grocery store at 2000 Franklin undoubtedly caused Louis Artigues a great deal of grief, as well.  Luckily, the warehouse at the time sat at the very rear of the property, a safe distance away from the house itself.  Finally, in April 1918, the property went to Sheriff Sale for the first time, a process that ended with the auction of the building and its contents in 1920.  [Blueprint at right by Gilbert & Kelly, Surveyors, rev'd 1950, from act before John H. hammel, Jr,, 2/10/1950, New Orleans Notarial Archives].

Times-Picayune, December 19, 1920.

The house saw brighter days in the 1920s and 1930s, when its owners and tenants played host to the polling stations for its precinct of the Eighth Ward.  Ward politics in those days involved many of the same issues we face today, while the politicians themselves seem to have altered their approach to campaigning.  John Fahey, an Eighth Ward leader during the 1920s, discussed the politics of housing issues in the Times-Picayune column, dated August 17, 1922, shown at right.  Then, as now, accusations flew between candidates, though Fahey's frank statement, "I admit I have sold some whisky since Prohibition went into effect, but I am not the only one who has done this," surprises modern ears for its bluntness.  Politicians, like Fahey, and droves of people from the community would have surrounded the house at 2000 Franklin on Election Day.


For a time in the 1950s, the home was owned by Michelina Brocato, widow of Angelo Brocato, they of ice cream fame.  Mrs. Brocato's purchase of the property caused another survey to be drawn, showing that the rear addition shown on earlier maps had been removed entirely by 1954.  Today, a new shed stands, attached to the house.

Considering the local political history that took place at 2000 Franklin, it is altogether fitting that even today campaign signs hang on the front of the house.  We can certainly attest to the liveliness of the neighborhood.  Two separate groups of neighbors approached us as we took our photographs, expressing hope that someone would restore the property soon.  Some remnant of the civic spirit of the 1920s must survive in the area today.  From its origins in the 1830s subdivision of Faubourg Franklin to its present position in the middle of St. Roch, 2000 Franklin has contributed positively and repeatedly to the history of New Orleans.  We hope it survives to preserve its legacy.

939-41 Piety - A House Speaks Out

939-41 Piety, corner of N. Rampart, currently being restored by local realtor Nicholas Scapin.

We confess - we were pretty excited when our good friend Nicholas Scapin asked OHS to research the history of his new restoration project at 939-41 Piety.  Scapin, the mastermind behind "The Crook at Camp & Calliope," had heard rumors about his new home but wanted to get the facts [click the link and turn to page 14 to read about another of Scapin's restoration endeavors].  As you'll see, we were unprepared for the richness of what we discovered!  Since the building is a classic New Orleans corner store, we knew that we'd find more tenants than owners.  Indeed, the storefront has housed a fruit vendor, an ice dealer, a grocery, a shoe repair shop, and most famously, the Crescent Star Bar.  When applying a new coat of bright orange paint, Scapin chose to preserve the white star on a blue background that shines from the Rampart Street side of the building, a constant reminder of the history of his building.

Antonio DeLucca, a fruit vendor, erected the structure in 1894 after purchasing the vacant lot from John Henry Helmke for $400 in January of the same year.  DeLucca, his wife, Catherine Genova, and their seven children moved in shortly thereafter, establishing the storefront for the family business.  Antonio died in 1909, though the family remained in the residential side while leasing the storefront to a succession of small businesses.

While many will remember the corner as the longtime home to the Crescent Star Bar, the Soards' City Directories from the first decades of the 20th century show that the place was not a bar until well into its fifth decade of existence.  The DeLucca's sold the building in 1921 to John Mumesci for $3000.  Click on the image at right to peruse a sample of historic city directories showing the store's tenants!


Those businesses most likely benefited from the august presence of the Piety Theater, across the street at 938 Piety.  The benefits turned to danger, however, on the night of January 29, 1940.  At the time, the residential side of 939-41 Piety was home to the Zanca family.  Mrs. Mary Zanca, the Times-Picayune tells us, was "kneeling in prayer near a window in the bedroom of her home...[when] she saw flames spurting from the roof of the two-story theater building" [Times-Picayune, January 30, 1940 p. 9].  Fearing for the safety of her family, house, and neighborhood, Zanca hurried her daughters, Grace and Providence, to the safety of the street.  In the photo, you can see the immense damage caused by the blaze.  If you look closely, you can also see the edge of our corner store on the left side of the image.

Our research into the history of 939-41 Piety yielded one of the most unexpected pieces of history we've encountered to date.  Mind you, the historians at OHS have over 50 years combined experience writing histories that span the world over, from prehistoric Pacific Island cultures to the 17th century Netherlands, from 19th century Arkansas to 20th century China.  None of that prepared us for the discovery we pulled out of the archives and are now sharing with you.  At left is a newspaper column written by a house.  A corner store/bar/house, to be exact.  Even though the article appeared under the byline of Clarence Doucet, make no mistake - 941 Piety deserves the credit.  The story began in July 1945, when Mrs. Angelina Constanza, wife of Joseph Kirsch, purchased the property for $6000.  She and her husband quickly established the Crescent Star Bar as a popular neighborhood watering hole.  Fast forward to July 1973, when we find the Kirsch's understandably sick and tired of automobiles driving through their front door.  They tried to get the city to put in a stop sign.  When their efforts failed, the house took to print, pleading its case.  The article [left] and its follow up [right], became a landmark in the struggle for house civil rights [Times-Picayune, July 3 & 18, 1973].

Threatened by fire, automobiles, and governmental inaction, the corner store at 939-41 Piety still stands.  Now celebrating its 118th birthday with a restoration from a new generation, its future is no longer in question!

UPDATE 8/9/2012:  A commenter on the OHS Facebook page posted the photo below, taken in the weeks after Hurricane Katrina and the Federal Flood, in 2005.

"You Enter You Will Die" http://www.flickr.com/photos/infrogmation/3198010166/

1521 Mandeville - Sheriff's Sale

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   This shotgun single at 1521 Mandeville, built in 1871, goes to Sheriff's Sale on September 13.  With the future of the home in the balance, we wanted to highlight its history.

For our purposes, the history of the home begins in 1859, when Mistress Marie Eleanor Renovi and her husband, John Francis Fernandez, purchased two vacant lots of ground in the square bounded by Mandeville, Spain, St. Avide (now N. Claiborne), and St. John the Baptist (now N. Robertson) from the succession of John's father, Joseph.  The lots had been in the Fernandez family for decades, unimproved by successive generations but always contributing to the family's wealth.  The Plan of 2 Lots of Ground in the 3rd District, left, hung on the wall of Norbert Vignie's auction house in advance of the auction to advertise the properties for sale.  [d'Hemecourt, J.A. Plan Book 65, Folio 15 (065.015), October 3, 1859]  

On January 11, 1871, Michael Kastner purchased one of those vacant lots from the Fernandez's for $200.  Kastner promptly improved the parcel, causing his tax assessment to jump from $200 in 1871 to $2000 in 1873.  We can be certain that the hike in the tax assessment corresponds to the addition of a building to the lot.  Although the structure appears in the Surveyor's Plan Book, 1874-81, the first detailed description of the house does not appear until 1878, when Kastner's estate went to auction following his death.  The 1878 act confirmed the purchase of three adjoining lots on Mandeville St. by Catherine Gaus, Kastner's sister, for $2225.  Gaus paid $725 for "a frame house, slate-roofed...having three rooms, sheds, cistern, privy, etc," the same house that stands there today.  Gaus' winning bid, quite low relative to the tax assessment, shows that real estate auctions in the 1870s closely resembled those like the Sheriff's Sale today, where valuable properties could go for pennies on the dollar.

Note the "old" address numbers in the description.  New Orleans converted to the present system in the 1890s to establish uniformity across the various old ward and district boundaries.

      

Charbonnet, F.D. v. 102, Act 435, June 2, 1920.

The house stayed in the Kastner family until 1912, when Eugene Bordes, a butcher at the St. Roch Market, paid $1300 for the buildings and improvements on lot 19.  When Bordes sold in 1920, the Deputy City Surveyor, C. Uncas Lewis, made a plan of the property showing the same structure cited in the 1878 sale.  Lewis labeled the structure, "No. 1521, single one story." 

Although the house changed hands several times throughout the 20th-century, the physical structure itself changed very little.  The slate roof mentioned in the 1878 sale may be gone but the same walls that Michael Kastner raised in 1871 have stood the test of time.

Two Buildings Become One

A client in the Irish Channel wondered why the floors near the center of her brick home stood a few inches higher than the floors around the perimeter walls.  With the knowledge that this structure had commercial uses at various points in the past, we considered the possibility that the storage of heavy equipment caused the stress in the floors.  Or perhaps a past owner had altered the corner entrance, leading to the slope.  The floors are solid brick, however, not wooden floor boards.  If not a structural issue then perhaps the ground itself had sunk under the weight of the walls.  Whatever we came up with was, unfortunately, only speculation.  Truthfully, one may never know the cause of such architectural phenomena in a home or business.  

In this instance, however, I discovered a valuable piece of evidence in the chain of title that provided the real answer to the riddle.  While tracing the route of conveyances beyond a transaction from one Emile Lasére to Guillaume Rozés in February 1860, I found a reference to Lasére's purchase of the property at a Sheriff's Sale several years previous.  Most of the time, an act of sale will reference the previous sale of the property as an assurance that said property had clear title.  Since the last transaction concerning this property had not been an ordinary purchase, I walked eagerly from the Notarial Archives on Poydras Street to the Louisiana Division at the Main Branch of the New Orleans Public Library.  Once there, I pulled the microfilm with the records of the Civil District Court for the relevant date, September 1854, to gather the extra information offered by the sheriff's records.  


I found a detailed advertisement for the auction, describing the condition of the property and a description of the buildings on the various plots of land involved.  The auction concerned a total of eleven lots in the upriver faubourgs, one of which is the subject of our present day investigation.  

The first paragraph describes the lots.  "Lot No. one forms the corner of Pleasant and Chippewa streets," the ad reads.  Yes, that's our lot of ground.  The next paragraph provides more details.  "Together with all the buildings and improvements on lot No. one..."  We are on the brink of an official description of our building, not a set of information that every sale includes, believe it or not.  "First," the ad continues, "a good, substantial brick dwelling house, having 40 feet, 10 inches front on Chippewa street, by 51 feet in depth on Pleasant street."  Indeed, this is our lot but the building that stands there today measures nearly the entire length of the lot on Chippewa Street, nearly 58 feet.  Could it be that the present building, despite its solid brick construction and walls four bricks wide, simply is not the same building that stood there in 1854.  It is possible, yes, but the next sentence solves the mystery of the sloping floor.  "Second, another brick building of 16 feet, 9 inches in front on Chippewa st..."  

1896 Sanborn
Note the Chippewa St. municipal addresses

1887 Sanborn
Note the municipal address of 37 Pleasant

When we add the lengths of the two buildings on Chippewa Street, we get 57 feet, 7 inches.  The single building today measures only a few inches wider than the combination of the two 1854 buildings.  The evidence suggests quite strongly that a previous owner joined the two original buildings into one larger structure.  The five inch gap between the two 1854 buildings accounts for the rise in floor elevation at a point 40 feet from the Pleasant Street wall.  These two images from the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, show a single building at the corner of Chippewa and Pleasant.  The next phase of our investigation seeks to discover who joined the buildings and why.   

Let Our House Stories delve into the historical record to solve the mysteries of your home.  Visit our website, www.ourhousestories.com, to learn more.  

Married, Knocked Out, and Fined - 1121 Antonine

We're preparing to drive to Florida for a family wedding.  The thoughts of matrimony reminded me of this vivid Times-Picayune clipping we came across while researching August Elmer's house on Antonine Street.

"Married, knocked out, arrested and fined within 3 hours was the unusual record of Mr. Joseph T. Ryan, 22 years old, 1121 Antonine Street" went the lede in this Friday edition of the Times-Picayune that day, November 8, 1929.  The trouble began during the reception when "a free-for-all fight" broke out "shortly after 10 p.m."  Someone called the police, who arrived to find the newlyweds, Ryan and Miss Angelina Chaisson, "inspecting the wreckage."  It's likely the groom was searching for his best man, Sam Inazza, who "found the competition too keen and left during the battle," according to police.

Even in 1929, the authorities used catch-all charges to arrest people.  Ryan took a trip to the station that night for "being drunk, disturbing the peace, using obscene language, and reviling the police."  That last one is my favorite.  Who could expect the groom to welcome potential captors with anything less than revulsion on his wedding day?  Probably, though, the police were letting him off easy.  The Times-Picayune reporter tells us that not only did Ryan take a swing at a police corporal on the scene but "he started a fight with Patrolman Edward Millet at the station and was knocked down for the count of 10."  What a night!

Despite the additional charge of assaulting Patrolman Millet, the courts showed mercy on young Joe Ryan.  The judge issued a $25 fine for drunkenness and disturbing the peace, though Recorder Charles Hammer, who "wanted to give him a wedding present," reduced the fine to $15.  The bride and Ryan's friends paid promptly.

I wonder if Mr. Ryan woke the next morning (or afternoon, as it were) on the couch at 1121 Antonine or if the new Mrs. Ryan tended to her new husband's wounds in the marital suite?  Unfortunately, these are the limits of what Our House Stories can uncover!  What stories lie within the walls of your house?

"He Sassed the Mayor"

Our research into the life of Felix Conrad continues.  The previous post, "The Sergeant Conrad Episode," related Felix's attempt to lead a band of Eighth Ward residents in cutting the protection levees during the Flood of 1890.  That post relied exclusively on the version of events found in the Daily Picayune.  Today we will examine the story from the point of view of other newspapers.  We are keeping our fingers crossed for the discovery of Felix Conrad's long-lost diary.  In the meantime, we will forge ahead with available archival sources.  It turns out that we could have scarcely wished for a more fascinating patriarch to commence Our House Story!  

When we left off, Conrad's defenders had written a long letter to the Daily Picayune portraying his actions in a positive light.  The coverage of the events by the Picayune trailed off after Conrad had left the scene of his confrontation with the mayor.  Other papers include the events of later in the day on that Thursday, April 24.  The Daily States and the New Orleans Times-Democrat differ on a few small details but agree on the broad strokes of the story.  After Mayor Joseph Shakespeare returned to his office in City Hall, he met with his advisers to decide the best course of action for saving the flooded parts of the city.  With the important work of saving the city out of the way, the mayor called Chief of Police David Hennessey to order the suspension of Sergeant Conrad.  [Some papers give his rank as sergeant, others as corporal.  The Police Department rosters show that he achieved both ranks but do not give dates for either].  


No sooner could Chief Hennessey pick up his telephone to relay news of the suspension than Conrad walked into the chief's office.  Chief Hennessey delivered the punishment to the just-arrived Conrad.  In the words of The Daily States, "Conrad visibly wilted under this severe address and hurriedly said: 'I did not deserve that.  I only told the Mayor that we would all be drowned.'"  Chief Hennessey stood firm, himself unable to disobey orders from the mayor.  "Conrad walked away muttering to himself 'that's d--n hard, d--n hard on a man,'" The Daily States continued, "He was very much excited and tears came to his eyes as he slowly marched out of the chief's office."


The New Orleans Times-Democrat leaves out the censored profanity from Conrad's parting words but agrees that his "eyes filled with with tears as he walked away."  The Times-Democrat attributes slightly more eloquence to our beleaguered Felix, quoting his explanation to the chief, "I do not deserve this.  I only tried to make the Mayor realize that we were all being drowned out.  I never for a moment intended any disrespect to him."


The bawdy scandal sheet The Mascot gave Conrad no such credit in its edition of April 26.  Although I chuckled with delight when I found the cartoon below in the Louisiana Division of the New Orleans Public Library, if only because it is the first picture of any kind I have found of Felix Conrad, I doubt the man himself took any pleasure in seeing the papers portray him in such a way.  The editorial deserves quoting at length:

Sergeant Felix Conrad possesses an excellent faculty for getting into trouble, and the wonder is that after his many escapades and rackets, that he still lives to display his gold buttons and burly shape upon the thoroughfares and buldoze [sic] those that will let him do it.  If one would take Conrad's history and write it up, [ahem - ed.], his rackets and escapes from death would read like a chapter from a dime novel history of some hero of the wild and woodly west.  Conrad, it might be remarked, comes from the Third district, being a manly product of that classic precinct, the rear of the German portion of the Eight [sic] ward, whereat the bull-frogs nightly hold reunions and the sad-eyed cows make noise.  He has quite a pull out there, in a political sense...

Conrad, now that it is too late, sees the error of his ways and repents, while his friends are leaving nothing undone to induce the Mayor to relent and leave up on Felix.  Our artist has pictured the mighty Felix as he appeared after he had been informed that Shakespeare was getting even with him.  The most effected [sic] think that Felix was badly treated by the Mayor and are rallying to his defence. 

The accounts from the Times-Democrat and the Daily States explain the comically large tears Felix cries in the cartoon.  Those tears seem to overflow the ring of levees within which he stands.  Felix's "burly shape" features prominently in the image, apparently with good reason, for he was once known as the "biggest on [the] force."  So while the Mascot surely earned its reputation for exaggeration, one would probably have been hard pressed to dispute the characterization of Felix Conrad as "burly."  The headline below, from 1921, gives the proof.

New Orleans Times-Picayune, March 27, 1921

With such an endless supply of material, we cannot wait to share more with you about the live of Felix Conrad, the man who began Our House Story at 2463 N. Villere!

"The Sergeant Conrad Episode"

Late April, 1890

   
Flooding along the Mississippi River causes Lake Pontchartrain to swell past its banks. The water rushes nearly 3.5 miles into the city, inundating the the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Ward neighborhoods.  For days and days, the rain beats down.  Thousands of homes sit submerged, their inhabitants unable to do anything except pray for relief.  

     
Mayor Joseph Shakespeare rides along the edge of the inundation, inspecting the situation with City Surveyor B.M. Harrod.  Upon surveying the Claiborne canal at its intersection with Elysian Fields, the mayor decides it is "better to save the portion of the rear not yet overflowed, although the volume of water would be temporarily increased in the portion already underwater."


The Daily Picayune tells us that at this juncture, a familiar police officer spoke up, beseeching the mayor to pursue a different course of action. Sergeant Felix Conrad "declaimed against the city authorities' programme, endeavored to incite dissatisfaction and, it is said, encouraged a movement to cut the dam and made himself generally disagreeable."  Sergeant Conrad did not disagree out of sheer obstinacy. His own house, at 2459 N. Villere Street, stood eight inches underwater. Though the city authorities worked diligently to rid the downtown neighborhoods of the water, the Picayune saw no way to complete the task before the water in Lake Pontchartrain itself receded. "This is a calamity for the poorer classes of the residents," the Picayune argued, for they are the principal ones who live in this portion of town." [NOTE: All quotes in this post from The Daily Picayune between April 23 and May 1, 1890.]


Mayor Shakespeare did not take kindly to Conrad's public denunciation. At the scene, "the mayor ordered [Conrad] away, and when he returned to the city hall he ordered Conrad's suspension and preferred charges against him of insubordination and attempting to incite a riot." Although the Police Board (on which the mayor sat as chairman) ultimately upheld the charges against Conrad on May 1, a number of people of the Eighth Ward seemed to have shared the sergeant's sentiment. "The Sergeant Conrad episode," as the Picayune referred to it, 

was followed later in the evening by a general call for police, as it was reported that some serious trouble was about to take place over the question of damming up the canal. The mayor and officials had visited the place several times during the day and a large crowd of the residents of the Eighth and Ninth wards were found on hand.  Several were loud in their protests and intimated that in preference to being drowned out they would have to kill them.

         [...]

The demonstrations made by the crowd caused a feeling of uneasiness and Chief Hennessy was notified.  He soon had a squad of about twenty-five men, two patrol wagons and his entire detective force on the scene.  The crowd disperesed and the police left the place shortly after.  As the gang of men were about to begin work building the levee at Butler’s hill they were suddenly interrupted by the appearance of Stevedore H.J. Hanselman, who was armed with a double-barreled shotgun.  He threatened to shoot the men for digging up the street to fill the sacks.  Mayor Shakespeare went down town after he heard of the trouble and made several speeches to the crowd.  He told the people that the dam across the canal would not be built, and there was applause.  But he added that if the city surveyor had ordered it built it would have been constructed, crowd to the contrary notwithstanding.

Even though the mayor assured the people that he would heed their will, a covert group took it upon themselves to cut the levee at Butler's Hill, at the corner of Poland and Villere, so as to let the water drain out of the neighborhoods and into Butler's Canal. The act, allegedly undertaken by the gardners of the neighborhood who feared losing their crops altogether, may or may not have helped the situation, though the Picayune noted "the fall of backwater into the lake" on April 27.

The Editor of the Picayune felt it necessary, as well, to publish "a long communication intended as a vindication of Police Sergeant Conrad." The letter, signed "SRETAW" ["waters" backwards?] or "SHETAW", sought to explain the circumstances from Sergeant Conrad's point of view. The letter writer portrayed Mayor Shakespeare as a "stony-hearted tyrant [who] commanded his humble supplicant to bow in reverence, and to go home and perish with his wife and children." After the mayor ordered Conrad to depart, the crowd erupted in jeers directed at the mayor but "when advised to desist, Mr. Shakespeare informed the infuriated crowd that he was the mayor." For tense moments, neither the crowd nor the mayor would yield. The people insisted "in sterner tones that...the poor have rights, and that [the mayor's] arrogance and power were less than their determination." Finally the mayor saw the futility of his position. As the mayor departed, so claims Conrad's defender, "he felt convinced that the people of the Eighth Ward had some spirit, but resolved to get even by applying his official ax to Conrad's neck, and thus screen his bad break."


The letter to the editor ends with a series of questions designed to elicit empathy for the suspended sergeant.

Who will blame Conrad for giving voice to his sentiment under such conditions? Who would censure an officer for talking to his superior as did Conrad, when all that he cherished on earth was in danger? Who will blame any man for disregarding official position, badges and emblems of office when his home is threatened with calamity? Who would dare reflect on any man because he resented a blow directed at his most vulnerable spot? Any man in Conrad's position, his home 8-inches under water with a possibility of being swamped out entirely, if he possessed just one grain of manhood, would declare himself even if he were contending with Shakespeare's assumption of importance.

We do not know today exactly what Conrad said to the mayor or to the assembled crowd that day.  We do not know what was going through his mind when he chose to speak truth to power.  One thing we know for certain, thanks to this letter writer, is that Conrad risked his livelihood in defense of his family and his home.  Though Conrad himself could not have known at the time, he was enacting the early chapters of the narrative that would become Our House Story.  

2459 N. Villere moments before its demolition in 2012

Conrad's home at 2459 N. Villere would survive the 1890 flood. Even though it sat on brick piers, the waters of 1890 rose several inches above the floor boards. The floods of that year and, indeed, many before and after, likely encouraged Conrad to take decisive steps to prevent a similar catastrophe. When he built his retirement home at 2463 N. Villere twenty years later, he did what he could to ensure his home and family would remain dry. We live in the home Conrad built in 1910, our floorboards a full 35 inches above the ground.



Of all the individuals in the crowds that gathered downtown during the last week of April, 1890, history only mentions two men by name. We are lucky that Felix Conrad was one of those men. As a closing remark, we should note that April 24 was a special day for old Felix before 1890 and that it would be for the rest of his life. By a quirk of history, April 24th was Felix Conrad's 43rd birthday.