Lots of pictures of the Garden District this time.
This is where Anne Rice lived while writing most of her vampire novels. Nicholas Cage bought it after she died and lived there until he lost the house in bankruptcy.
The Garden District is beautiful, but it is not what it used to be. There used to be about 4 mansions per block with large gardens, hence the name Garden District. Now though, the owners have subdivided the gardens and put 2 to 3 more houses where each garden used to be. The houses are incredibly expensive, but the gardens are mostly gone.
I will put some of the better pictures here in the blog, but more pictures are on the Louisiana photo page. https://www.wandering-around.net/louisiana
The Garden District has always been the rich area of town. The houses are gorgeous, but a little run down. Most that we saw are undergoing some sort of renovations. I don't know if it is all Hurricane Katrina damage or just time and humidity damage. Here are some of the houses we saw.
While we were wandering around, we ran into this lady walking her dog. She has lived in the area since she was born. She showed us all the famous people mansions.
The first one is the Anne Rice house. The second is John Goodman's house. The third one is Archie Manning's house. John Goodman used to sit on the front steps and hand out Halloween candy. I guess the Manning kids were a pain. They would throw, kick, hit balls from their backyard over that house you see in the front, corner of the picture across the next street and into the yard of the house across the street. She could have shown us Sandra Bullock's house and F. Scott Fitzgerald's house but we were too hot and tired. Angelina Jolie doesn't live in the Garden District, she lives in the French Quarter so our guide couldn't show us her house.
She showed us other stuff and I put most of the descriptions in the photo page.
When you have a lot of money, you put it into the details of your mansion.
The reality of New Orleans does not look like the Hollywood version of New Orleans. The city is a poor city. Private citizens and companies have money, but the city does not. Infrastructure maintenance shows it. Roads and bridges are terrible. There is a draw bridge near the RV park that is permanently open and no cars are allowed over it. If you go on a walking tour, be sure to wear hiking boots that give you plenty of ankle support. You can very easily twist an ankle here. I am not kidding.
There is the most popular style of mansion.
The basic plan is 2 story's with 4 pillars. The house in the lower left has more pillars, but the basic outline is the same. The top middle one could be F. Scott Fitzgerald's house, but his is flat on the top and doesn't have the arch on the roof, but, otherwise, it could be the same house.
We do wish there were more gardens in the Garden District.
In other news:
I put up up a webpage for our new house. It has all the pictures related to the new house that I have. I will put up any more that I get from the builder.
I put up our new schedule a little while ago, but it has changed already. I will put it up when I have everything scheduled (and the old stuff cancelled). Basically, we not going west as planned. We will spend the summer in Texas. So far, we have reservations at Lake Texoma and Austin. More to come.
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