818-820 Royal St.

818-820 Royal Street

Erected: c. 1920
Architect: unknown
Builder: unknown

An interesting long, low building with a two-story kitchen and service wing in the rear courtyard, were torn down to make way for this raised bungalow type of dwelling. The present structure is out of character in the Vieux Carre.

Both from [h]earsay and evidence it is possible to determine that the razed building was an early type of cottage. The Sanborn Map of 1876 indicates that this cottage and the service wing were standing then. At a succession sale in 1845 the transaction included "...all the frame buildings found thereon." In 1816 the property was described as "a house situated in this city on Royal Street...constructed of wooden front." Two years previous to that it was a "[p]rincipal house consisting of four room and a fireplace, a rear gallery, cellar and cabinet in the rear; an upper story kitchen built of brick between posts, consisting of six rooms, three downstairs and three upstairs; a paved yard, well, etc. Whether these were all the same structures it is difficult to say now. But the land itself has belonged to some interesting people in its time.

From the 1820s to the 1840s this was the property of Joseph Pilie, prominent architect and surveyor who came to New Orleans from Santo Domingo, and made a distinguished niche for himself and his family in the life of the town. Le Sieur Fontaine, listed in the 1807 Directory as a printer at 19 Rue Royale (Nord), a man of parts in his time [and] widely known as the distinguished editor of the first New Orleans newspaper, Le Monituer de la Louisiane, owned this [lot] and lived here from 1802 to 1816. Prior to that, it belonged to the merchant, Miguel Fortier, who had it from another merchant named Luis Cornue.

Back to 1779, when the property was the joint possession of Pedro Bonemain and Juan Bautista Gravier, it had the same size and proportions that it has today. No records yet available tell when this property was partitioned from its parent lot, but it was once part of a standard grant measuring 60' by 120' F.M., belonging in 1731 and 1728 to the Company of the Indies. In 1722 the de La Tour map lists Desvalette, Commander of the Negroes, at Lot No. 82.