600-608 Royal St.

Estate inventory

Of Joseph Ducros [Spanish].

P. Pedesclaux, Vol. 5/30

Binoche Brothers, Fancy store, 158 Royal St. c[orner] Toulouse.

MR. LANSOT. Portrait painted having returned from the country, informs his friends and the public, that he has removed his Painting Room to the corner of Royal and Toulouse Streets, 2nd floor above the store of Messrs. Binoche.

He will continue to [m]ake likenesses of persons deceased.

He trusts his fidelity and pains will meet with the approbation of the public.

Binoche, L., corner Toulouse and Royal.

Binoche Brothers, fancy dry goods, corner Royal and Toulouse.

Binoche, L., fancy dry goods store, 77 Chartres Street.

600-608 Royal Street

Erected: c. 1805-1817; 1825; 1841
Architect: Benjamin F. Fox
Builder: [Tobias] Bickel and [Philip] Hamblet

This distinguished business-dwelling is one of the ornaments of the square. It was built in two phases. The ground floor was erected probably sometime between 1805 and 1817 by Rudolph Joseph Ducros. The second story was added in 1825 by Dr. Germain Ducatel, who in 1841 added another story also to the kitchen. Yet so skillfully was the transition effected that there is the most agreeable harmony between these parts. To a remarkable degree this building is faithful to its original design. Certain additions have been made down the years, but these do not alter greatly the whole effect.

Two stories high, built of brick covered with plaster-cement, this long, low building runs nearly eighty feet along Royal Street and about two-thirds the depth of its seventy-seven foot lot. Two planbook drawings tell much about the evolution of this building. The earliest, done in 1825, shows details of floor plans and the Toulouse Street elevation. The second was made in 1879 at the time of a later sale.

In the 1825 sketch, when the Ducatels added to the property, the second floor openings are square-headed as they are today, with French doors giving onto a gallery. All first floor openings are arched, with fine fan transoms. A handsome paneled double door opens into an arcaded loggia at the rear on Toulouse Street. It is safe to assume that the first floor openings on Royal Street were also arched at this time. A very fine, simple wrought iron gallery, trimmed with brass ball finials, runs along the entire face of this building. A nicety here is the way this gallery curves into its end sections both on Toulouse and Royal Streets. A strong course of well-shaped moldings comprise the cornice. Above this is a steep hipped roof.

This earliest drawing is rather meager. No details of wall or gate are given here, but detached and at a suitable distance is a two story kitchen with wooden galleries and colonettes. The front gallery extends only around the corner building in 1825 and is not included on the end structure. A building contract, dated March 6, 1841, between Germain Ducatel and Henri Gobet, builder, documents the addition of a third story to the kitchen building, and calls for the balcony of this story to be like the existing one on the second floor.

By 1879 certain major changes have occurred as seen from the second of the plan book sketches. Here we have a corner view with both the Toulouse and Royal Street elevations in fuller detail. The third story of the kitchen building, with its additional round of colonettes and galleries, is clearly indicated. A plaster-coated brick wall, with wide double-paneled doors, connects the slave quarter to the house. The entire face of the first floor corner building has been changed by the addition of projecting show cases. Only the two rear openings on Toulouse Street remain arched. Slender, flat wooden pilasters mark the area between these windows on the corner structure. The great length of the building is broken by a slight indentation suggestive of a second building, and the window grouping heightens this effect. The roof line varies on this second property also. Dormers break the roof line on the corner structure by this time.

Very little change has been made between 1879 and today. Now the gallery extends across the entire Royal Street facade. There are several gardes de frise on the Royal Street front of the gallery, and above the cornice is a kind of parapet. Between the house and the kitchen is now a great cast iron fence. At the rear of the corner building is an arcaded loggia with three great arches opening onto a shallow courtyard. Above is an enclosed gallery with a single, vast fan transom window in the center.

Originally, this important corner was granted to Sieur de Villemont; later it was assigned to the Sieur Rivard. There follows a gap in the records until we come to the Wiltz family who undoubtedly acquired this fairly early. The Wiltzes were Germans who were brought over by John Law. They prospered here, and within a few years had large holdings. Around 1755 Mlle. Wilhelmina Marguerite Wiltz inherited this corner from her father. She married Joseph Marie Ducros, a prominent colonist whose name appears often in documents of the Spanish period as "alderman."

At M[adame] Ducros' death she left this property to her three children. Her son Rudolph Joseph Ducros received the corner, a piece 45' by 72', in 1805. Two daughters inherited a neighboring strip measuring 30' by 72'. In 1817 Rudolph Joseph Ducros acquired this smaller piece from his sisters. This second acquisition probably accounts for the two-building appearance of this dwelling. The building contract of 1825 reads "...repair, erect, build, set up and finish one house now existing on said lot of ground, and building adjoining the same, that is shall and will set up another story on the one now existing, the whole according to the plan or draughts hereto annexed. The cornice in front to be exactly like Mr. Labatut's dwelling house in Royal Street."

It is likely that Rudolph Joseph Ducros built the first story corner building and his sisters may have done the other, or he may have added this after he acquired it from them in 1817. Both fenestration and rear arrangements would indicate this.

In 1825 this property was acquired by Dr. Germain Ducatel, a prominent physician. Dr. Ducatel had been with Napoleon, and after Waterloo the doctor came to New Orleans. Here he served in the Battle of New Orleans, then continued to practice medicine. In 1825 he purchased this property from the Ducros' heirs and built up this handsome establishment. At this time he abandoned his practice, and turned the ground floor into a flourishing dry goods emporium. His son Amédée, who grew up here, became an eminent lawyer of his time, and his notarial acts form one of the important collections in the archives today.

In 1847 the property passed out of Ducatel hands. Periods of ownership since then have been fairly long, and the past eighty-two years this property has known only two owners. This undoubtedly accounts for the excellence of its condition today.

"Ducros-Ducatel among best Creole houses:

One of the great ornaments of the Old Square is the Ducros-Ducatel building at the corner of Toulouse and Royal."

"$215,000 for Quarter Property:
Royal, Toulouse Buildings Sold:

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Vieux Carre property, portions of which date back about 160 years, has been sold for $215,000."

"4 Shops Damaged in Fire:

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One fireman suffered from smoke inhalation and chest pains Saturday as firefighters battled a general alarm blaze affecting four shops in the 600 block of Royal Street."