Charlton & Pruitt: 588 Walnut Street

Architect-contractors Charles H. Charlton, Jr. (c. 1866-1940) and Edwin E. Pruitt, in partnership from 1894-1897, designed this Audubon Park residence for Mrs. Taylor. The furnished residence was available as a rental in the spring of 1897. In the early 1940s, it was converted to a fourplex and then to a triplex in the 1970s. The building's facade appears relatively unchanged today.

In the summer of 1894, Charlton and Pruitt advertised their new practice in The Daily Picayune. They first maintained an office at 808 Baronne Street, and later moved to Thomas Sully's Liverpool, London & Globe Building (200 Carondelet Street).  In 1896, Inland Architect and News Record published Charlton & Pruitt's rendering of a residence for A.L. Levy. The Chicago Art Institute's Ryerson & Burnham Library has digitized more than 5,000 images from the Midwest-based architecture periodical, and the Charlton-Pruitt sketch may be found here.

Image above: Advertisement, The Owl; Organ of the Young Men's Hebrew Association. Louisiana Research Collection, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Camelbacks

In September 1896, The Daily Picayune interviewed local architects and builders regarding the economic situation.  Southron Rhodes Duval (1852-1916), who practiced briefly with Alexander Hay (1858-1937), emphasized the proliferation of camelbacks:

'Architecture to-day is on a firm footing in New Orleans, and the architect from the simple draughtsman who from copying plans of foreign houses for his employer, the builder, evolved into the copyist of plans of local houses for his employer, the owner, into later the present recognized originator and designer of the building with all its details of convenience, decoration, etc. To-day the owner knows that to get a good and well-designed building he must go to an architect. New Orleans, it is said, is the only city in the country showing so many houses of similar design. In the "camelback" type alone there has been counted 8000 made from the same model. In the "steamboat" type of double deckers there is nearly as many exactly like each other.

'The fact is apparent now that success in investment property means to make renting buildings a little better than their neighbors, and with the home to make of it an index of the character of the owner and an educational feature of the city to his children and the public.'(1)

Duval spent many years outside of New Orleans. Although a native, he left the city in 1875, traveling to New York City and Canada and obtaining a position with the U.S. Geological Survey in Massachusetts. He helped to survey the Sonora Railway in Guaymas, Mexico, and served an apprenticeship with Brooklyn, New York architect R.B. Eastman.

(1) Southron R. Duval, quoted in "Architects and Builders Hopeful." The Daily Picayune  (1 September 1896): p. 14.

Image above:  James Freret. Design for a Double Frame Cottage on Delachaise Street for John O'Connor. James Freret Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

NEW! Thomas Sully Finding Aid

The Southeastern Architectural Archive recently finalized the processing of the Thomas Sully Office Records. The collection consists of architectural drawings, specifications and photographs associated with the career of Thomas Sully, a Mississippi-born architect (1855-1939) who is credited with designing New Orleans' first skyscraper, the Hennen (AKA Maritime) building.

Thomas Sully was born in Mississippi City, Mississippi, the great nephew and  namesake of the English-born artist renowned for his American portraits and history paintings. The younger Thomas Sully obtained his early education at Dr. Sander’s School in New Orleans, followed by architectural apprenticeships with Larmour & Wheelock (Austin, Texas) and then J. Morgan Slade & Henry Rutgers Marshall (New York City).

Read more about the architect in the online finding aid here.

If you are unfamiliar with the Southeastern Architectural Archive's holdings, consult its list of "Finding Aids by Collection Name."

Image above: Thomas Sully, architect. The Medical Building, 124-126 [formery 17-19] Baronne Street. As it appears in New Orleans Through a Camera, Louisiana Research Collection, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

From Milwaukee to New Orleans

The 1884-1885 World Cotton Exposition in New Orleans introduced new household and building products to fair visitors. Various companies, including those represented by local agents, advertised their wares in such publications as The Industries of New Orleans: Exposition Year (1885).

German immigrant carpenter William Willer was an enterprising Wisconsinite whose sash, door and blind company introduced a number of patents in the late nineteenth century. All were developed by William's son Henry E. Willer, whose first patent, for an interior wooden sliding blind, became immensely popular (US patents 312,051; 312,052; and 312,053). At the peak of the family's operations in the first decade of the twentieth century, the company employed over 200 people. 

The Willer Manufacturing Company was represented in New Orleans by architect-brothers William C. and C. Milo Williams. The latter employed Willer's sliding blinds in his design for a residence located at 1406 General Taylor Street, a structure no longer standing. The blinds can be seen through the second-story windows in the photograph below.

The sliding blinds were classed by cost, with "Class A" being the most expensive, because it included a window frame made with a receptacle at the top, in which the blind could be entirely hidden from view. "Class B" (shown below) sliding blinds had no such concealment, and, as such, windows would always be partially obfuscated by a section or sections of the sliding blind.

Photographic image above is from the Williams Family Office Records.

Prints are from Willer's patent inside sliding blinds: manufactured under 10 letters patent granted to Henry E. Willer: other applications pending. Milwaukee, WI: William Willer, 1885. Trade Catalogs Collection.

An additional Willer catalog may be accessed via the Building Technology Heritage Library.

Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Polder Pontchartrain

In 1925, retired architect Thomas Sully (1855-1939) proposed an engineering project for Louisiana . . . creating a giant polder out of Lake Pontchartrain. He envisioned  that home builders could utilize the newly formed land and that there would no longer be a need to construct a bridge linking New Orleans to the North Shore. Sully conveyed:

'Lake Pontchartrain is a shallow lake, the average depth being about fourteen feet and the greatest depth sixteen feet. A mile from shore you would construct the levee in water from six to twelve feet deep. Just what it would cost I will let the engineers and contractors, who are familiar with such work, figure it out.

As to the value of the land after the completion, it should pay for the construction. Permission would have to be given by the United States, the state of Louisiana, and the city or a corporation could do the work. The land should be worth on an average $500 per acre, and as there is [sic] about 227,500 acres, it would mean $113,750,000.'

An avid sportsman, Sully spent considerable time on Lake Pontchartrain, the Tchefuncta River and the Gulf of Mexico.

Image/quoted matter from: "Here is Proposed Lake Levee." The Times-Picayune (8 January 1925): p. 6.

Workmen Vouch for a Real Ghost Story

In October 1905, New Orleans house mover/shorer George J. Abry reported on his workers' encounter with a spooky place:


“I had a house back in the rear of the city to raise, repair and generally overhaul – just where that house is I won’t say, because I don’t want to give it a bad name; that might cause tenants to taboo the place – and put quite a number of men on the job.

The house was an old one, had been on its alto for a long time, I guess but until our experience we – my men and myself – didn’t know that it had the reputation of being haunted by a former occupant who had died there.

                                                 ******

Believe me there was consternation among my men, and all were of the opinion that the house was certainly haunted, and that a ghost had taken it upon himself to superintend their work. Everybody went about with a nervous uncertain air, and at the least sound, other than the noises consequent to the work underway, each man would drop his hammer, hatchet or whatever other implement he had in his hand, and stare about with frightened eyes.”

The Times Picayune 22 October 1905

Progress Photographs

For twentieth-century municipal, state and federal construction projects, progress photographs were often mandated. Generally commissioned of a professional photographer, these images typically document the building site prior to, during and after construction. Sometimes the series includes aerial photographs of the entire neighborhood. As such, they provide a significant amount of information to researchers regarding not only the building process, but also record alterations to the built environment as they happened.

The two photographs above document the upriver side of Canal Street in October 1936 and May 1957.

The first image, one in a series of 45 taken by photographer F.A. McDaniels, documents the old Charity Hospital buildings prior to their demolition. Patients line the seating areas along the right-hand side of the courtyard, the Knights of Pythias building and the Hibernia Bank building can be seen in the distance. The Pythian structure served as a temporary Charity Hospital for black patients for a two-year period between 1936 and 1938.

The second image, one in a series of  109 taken by Industrial Photos, records the construction of the main branch of the New Orleans Public Library. The Saratoga building and the Civic Center (former Knights of Pythias) building can be seen on the left, and City Hall and the Warwick Hotel can be seen on the right. Other photographs in the series record the construction of the Saratoga, City Hall, the State Supreme Court building and the 222 Loyola Avenue parking garage. Some reveal the removal of architectural ornamentation from the exterior of the old Pythian Temple Parisian Roof Garden.

First image:  F.A. McDaniels, photographer. Louisiana Charity Hospital Project. 10 October 1936. Weiss, Dreyfous & Seiferth Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Second:  Industrial Photos, 2430 Royal Street. New Orleans Public Library Main Branch. 31 May 1957. Curtis & Davis Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.