629-631 Chartres St.

627-629 Chartres Street

Erected: 1840-1850
Architect: unknown
Builder: unknown

This combined business-dwelling is unique to the culture that produced it in the Vieux Carré. A two-story brick building, the façade has been coated with plaster and painted. Cast iron flat columns on the ground floor separate simple, old-fashioned shop windows flush with the sidewalk. Centered between these shop windows are French doors that lead into the shop beyond. On the second story French doors with louvred shutters open on a cast iron gallery that extends over the banquette and rests on fluted cat iron columns. This is typical Creole architecture of the mid-nineteenth century. A number of structures have preceded it here, for this site has belonged to significant people.

The de la Tour map lists "M. Bruslé, inhabitant" at Lot 65. This was Sieur Antoine Bruslé, concessionaire, councilor, member of the first Superior Council, and man of importance who came with Bienville at the beginning of the settlement here. No further documentation turns up in the notarial records until 1789. But then, none really needs to; for by piecing together the records of other properties in this square it is possible to see clearly how this estate passed on.

Brusle's daughter, Louise Elizabeth Brusle, married Claude Joseph Favrot. Their son was Don Pedro Favrot, known as the Creole Pepys; and their daughter, Louise Favrot, married Alexandre de Clouet, an important planter of St. Martinville and New Orleans. It was the de Clouet son, Luis, who in 1814, became involved in an abortive plot to return Louisiana to Spain. He was a Brigadier General when this was a Spanish colony, and later became Governor of the province of Hagua, Cuba. His grandmother, Louise Elizabeth Bruslé Favrot died in Paris in 1767.

Records of this property and its neighbor in the rear, 626 Royal Street, bear out this relationship and events. All this land was inherited by Bruslé's daughter Louise Elizabeth, who left it to her children. The Royal Street property went to Don Pedro Favrot; the Chartres Street land passed to Louise Favrot de Clouet. Hence when Alexandro de Clouet sold this land to Vincent Joseph Nunez in 1789, he was merely selling his wife's inheritance from her grandfather, Antoine Bruslé, to whom it was granted by the Company of the Indies.

Early maps show a building on this site, set back from the street, with a hipped roof. This appears to be a typical dwelling in the French colonial style, much as is Mme. John's Legacy today. Two small outbuildings appear in the depth of this lot. By 1789, when the first known notarial act on this property was written, the fire of 1788 had occurred, having been started in the property next door. Naturally the old house would have been leveled in this blaze. Nunez---who bought the property from de Clouet---was undoubtedly acting merely as an agent, for he sold the property the same day to Don Joseph Xavier de Pontalba. The record of this second transaction states that "...there are already built two small brick houses of one story, flat-roofed, divided into four rooms, with chimneys and salas." The next sale occurred in 1796, two years after the second fire, and again we read that "...two adjoining houses" exist here, undoubtedly having been rebuilt once more.

The property was sold thereafter at infrequent intervals. In an 1838 transaction the description reads "a main brick building composed of a store on the first floor, and of two rooms on the second story and a small brick building in the yard." All subsequent acts merely describe this as "a lot of ground with buildings," and so it is difficult to place an actual date for the present building. The property passed on evidently having been reasonably cared for. It was purchased in 1936 by Le Petit Theatre, but returned again to private ownership a few years later.

Honors given by Vieux Carre Commission:

The Vieux Carre Commission presented awards this month to six French Quarter architectural projects completed in 1992....Special certificates of recognition were given to Fred Ogden, the owner, and Douglas Dawson, the lessee, of 629 Chartres St."