The LaLaurie Mansion, New Orleans: The True Story and the Ghosts

At the corner of Royal and Governor Nicholls streets, in the quiet lower French Quarter, stands a grey three-story mansion with an iron balcony. It looks like many of its neighbors. It is the LaLaurie Mansion, the most notorious address in New Orleans, and almost every ghost walk in the city stops outside it.

Its reputation rests on a true and terrible event. In April 1834 a fire in Delphine LaLaurie’s kitchen led to the discovery of enslaved people starved, chained and abused in her house. Over the next two centuries that history was retold, embellished and finally turned into horror fiction, including the Emmy-winning portrayal of LaLaurie in American Horror Story: Coven. This guide separates what the records show from what was added later, then covers the ghost stories and how to see the house respectfully.

History of the LaLaurie Mansion

Marie Delphine Macarty was born in New Orleans in 1787 into a prominent Creole family. She married three times and was twice widowed; her third husband was a younger physician, Louis LaLaurie. In 1831 she bought the lot at 1140 Royal Street, and a two-story mansion with attached slave quarters was built there in 1832.

On April 10, 1834, fire broke out in the kitchen. Responders found the cook, a 70-year-old woman, chained to the stove by her ankle. She said she had set the fire deliberately, to end her life rather than face punishment in the house’s upper rooms. When bystanders broke into the slave quarters they found seven people, described in the New Orleans Bee as ‘more or less horribly mutilated’. Judge Jean Francois Canonge later testified to finding an enslaved woman in an iron collar and an injured older woman.

The rescued people were taken to the local jail, where by one account as many as 4,000 people came to see them. An angry crowd attacked the mansion and wrecked most of it. Delphine LaLaurie escaped by schooner to Mobile and then to Paris, and she was never brought to justice. French records give her death in Paris on December 7, 1849; a copper plate later found in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 gives 1842.

The house you see is not the one she lived in. Pierre Trastour rebuilt it after 1838, and over the next century it was a public high school, a music conservatory, an apartment building, a refuge for young delinquents, a bar, a furniture store and finally luxury apartments. Nicolas Cage bought it in 2007 for $3.45 million and lost it to foreclosure in 2009; energy trader Michael Whalen bought it in 2010 and spent more than $4 million restoring it. It has since been listed for sale at $10.25 million.

Legend, myth and the ghosts of the LaLaurie Mansion

How the story grew

The cruelty is supported by eyewitness reports from 1834. The worst horrors told today are not. In 1946 the writer Jeanne DeLavigne added graphic scenes of medical experiments and mutilation without citing any source, and a 1998 book added more. Modern retellings that claim dozens or even a hundred victims are not supported by the primary sources. A 1934 newspaper article even argued the original reports were partly a smear by a neighbor, but the core of the 1834 accounts is backed by more than one witness, including a judge.

The girl on the roof

The most repeated tale is of a young enslaved girl, called Leah or Lia in later accounts, who fled Delphine LaLaurie’s whip, ran onto the roof or a high balcony and fell to her death in the courtyard. Versions differ on how she fell, and there is no record of her. Ghost tour guides say her footsteps and cries are still heard.

Moans from the upper rooms

For nearly two centuries, people living or working in the house have reported moaning, crying and scratching from the upper floors where the enslaved people were found, along with footsteps and a heavy, oppressive feeling. When the building was a girls’ school in the late 1800s, pupils are said to have shown scratches and blamed ‘that woman’, though no school memoir records it.

The 1894 death

One documented death in the house is often linked to its reputation: in 1894 a tenant was found killed in his room and his things ransacked. A friend’s account spoke of sprites and a demon, which ghost writers have seized on. It was a murder, not a haunting, but it fed the legend.

Delphine LaLaurie herself

Some visitors claim to have seen Delphine LaLaurie, at the house or at St. Louis Cathedral, where she worshipped. Others insist her victims are the ones who remain. Either way, no paranormal group has ever been allowed to investigate inside.

Where to look

• The Royal Street corner: the best place to stand and see the whole facade.
• The upper windows: where the enslaved people were found in 1834.
• The balcony: the iron gallery that wraps the second floor.
• The service wing on Governor Nicholls Street: the old slave quarters, rebuilt.

Seeing the LaLaurie Mansion

The LaLaurie Mansion is a private home, and no tours, ghost hunts or paranormal investigations are allowed inside. Any tour company that advertises interior access is misleading you. You can see the house from the public sidewalks at Royal and Governor Nicholls streets, any time.

Nearly every French Quarter ghost walk stops outside, usually in the evening, and the guide will tell the story. If you go on your own, stand across the street, keep the sidewalk clear, keep your voice down and do not knock, photograph through windows or linger at the doors. People live here.

Because the story is about real people who suffered here, many visitors find it more moving than frightening. Read the history before you go, and remember the people who were held in this house.

• Visiting Private residence; exterior only. No tours or investigations are allowed inside
• Tours A stop on nearly every French Quarter ghost walk (outside only)

Tips for your visit

• Visit early in the evening, before the ghost walk crowds arrive.
• Stand across Governor Nicholls Street for the best view of the corner and the service wing.
• Read the history before you go; it makes the stories easier to judge.
• Walk on to the Old Ursuline Convent and the Beauregard-Keyes House, a few blocks away.

More haunted places nearby

• St. Louis Cemetery No. 1: Marie Laveau’s tomb
• The Old Ursuline Convent: the Casket Girls legend, two blocks away
• Haunted hotels in New Orleans: stay the night in a haunted room
• Haunted places in Louisiana
• Haunted places in New Orleans

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the official website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as staff, visitors and investigators tell them, and we say where records contradict a story.

• Wikipedia: LaLaurie Mansion
• Ghost City Tours: The ghosts of the LaLaurie Mansion
• Ghost City Tours: Can I go inside the LaLaurie Mansion?
• AOL: Haunted New Orleans mansion that Nicolas Cage lost lists for $10.25M
• New Orleans & Company: The most haunted places in New Orleans