1826 Federal-style French Quarter mansion where Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard rented after the Civil War; later home of novelist Frances Parkinson Keyes.
1113 Chartres Street, New Orleans, LA 70116
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Adult admission approximately $15-$20; gardens may be visited separately. Check museum site for current rates.
Access
Limited Access
Raised center-hall mansion with exterior stairs to the main floor; gardens are partially accessible
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1826 · 1826 raised center-hall Federal-Greek Revival mansion · Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard rental 1866-1868 · Birthplace of chess prodigy Paul Morphy (1837) · Home of novelist Frances Parkinson Keyes · Landmark French Quarter preservation project
The parcel at 1113 Chartres Street was originally part of the Ursuline Convent grounds; the Ursuline nuns sold off the land in 1825. Auctioneer Joseph LeCarpentier acquired the lot and commissioned architect Francois Correjolles to design a raised center-hall mansion combining traditional Creole-cottage massing with Greek Revival classical features. The house was built by James Lambert and completed in 1826.
LeCarpentier's grandson, the chess prodigy Paul Morphy, was born in the house in 1837 and lived there as a child before the family relocated. The property changed hands several times. In 1865, local grocer Dominique Lanata purchased the house as an income property and rented it out for decades.
Lanata's most famous tenant was Confederate Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard. After the Civil War, Beauregard rented the house from 1866 to 1868, having previously stayed there briefly. He worked during his rental on railroad-investment ventures and on his Civil War memoirs. He did not own the property and did not return to it after 1868.
In the 1940s, the New England-born novelist Frances Parkinson Keyes purchased the property, intent on saving it from demolition. She hired architect Richard Koch beginning in 1945 to lead a restoration that has been credited as a milestone in French Quarter preservation. Keyes lived in and wrote out of the house for the rest of her life, producing many of her Louisiana-set novels there, including Madame Castel's Lodger - a novel that fictionalizes Beauregard as a character living in the house.
Keyes bequeathed the property to a foundation. The Beauregard-Keyes House operates today as a public house museum and event venue. The walled rear garden was restored to a period-appropriate plan and is one of the most-visited private gardens in the French Quarter.
Sources
According to regional ghost-tour reporting (Ghost City Tours, Very Local: Haunted NOLA), the most-reported figure at the Beauregard-Keyes House is the apparition of Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard. The lore frames him as pacing the parlors after dark, sometimes described as searching for boots said to have been left behind during his 1866-1868 rental. A second commonly cited apparition is his second wife, Caroline Deslonde Beauregard - though biographers note that Caroline died in 1864, before her husband's New Orleans rental, so the dancing-couple report functions as a romantic embellishment rather than literal history.
Witnesses on the surrounding sidewalks have reported ethereal music drifting from inside the house at night - sometimes described as a formal ballroom orchestra. Battlefield-style reports of Civil War soldiers in butternut and gray uniforms have been described on the grounds and in the gardens; some interpretations link these to the Battle of Shiloh, which Beauregard helped command.
Novelist Frances Parkinson Keyes - who lived in the house from the 1940s until her death in 1970 - wrote of sensing Beauregard's presence during her residency and used him as a character in Madame Castel's Lodger. Her open framing of the house as a literary-haunted space is responsible for much of the modern paranormal narrative.
The house's documentary history is unusually well-attested; the paranormal narrative is folklore that has been carried forward by the foundation's tour-and-event programming and by French Quarter walking-tour operators. All reports of military apparitions on the property should be understood as locally accumulated lore rather than documented sightings; no battle was fought on this site.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Forty-five-minute docent-led tour of the 1826 raised center-hall mansion designed by Francois Correjolles, including the parlors used by Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard during his 1866-1868 rental and the writing study where novelist Frances Parkinson Keyes worked in the 1940s. The walled rear garden is included on most tours.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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