Madame Marie Anne Bienvenu Olivier

In 1838 Mme. Marie Anne Bienvenu Olivier, widow of the distinguished planter Nicolas Godefroy Olivier, built this great house on Toulouse Street. One of the most substantial mansions of the day, its creation was the last proud achievement of Mme. Olivier's long and vigorous life. Born in 1772, in Spanish colonial days, Marie Anne Bienvenu lived through stirring times. She saw both great fires that destroyed most of the city in 1788 and 1794. Before her eyes New Orleans rose from the flames, no longer a provincial village of small one-story houses and raised cottages, but a growing city with fine public buildings and houses soaring three stories into the sky. She was part of the transition days, when Spain ceded the territory back to France and Napoleon sold it to the United States. She saw her city and her state expand, her family increase in wealth and power, and when she died, in 1843, the seeds had already been sown for the social and economic upheaval the War Between the States was to bring. Yet she was only 2 generations removed from her grandfather Bienvenu who came to this land as a little orphan boy in 1720 under the protection of the Controller General, when the settlement of Nouvelle Orleans was not much more than a few rude huts clustered around an empty public square. Like many prominent people who began life on concessions from the Company of the Indies, the Bienvenus were essentially land owners. Land grants from both the French and Spanish had been made to them along the Mississippi and Bayou Terre aux Boeufs. The plantation house along this bayou, known today as Kennilworth, belonged to the Bienvenus, and may well have been Marie Anne's girlhood home in the country.
When she was 16 Marie Anne married Nicolas Godefroy Olivier, a widower twice her age with three children. His father, Pierre Francois Olivier, Sieur de Vezin, an engineer, had been sent to Quebec by the king of France, and in 1749 was appointed Inspector of Roads and Bridges and Surveyor General of Louisiana. Shortly after Pierre moved to Louisiana with his family, Nicolas Godefroy was born. The Oliviers prospered, and when Nicolas married Marie Anne it was the union of two of the most influential families in the colony. Nine children were born of this marriage, then Nicolas died. Unlike many women of her time, Mme. Olivier never remarried. Perhaps it was enough for her to manage the great plantation and raise Nicolas' 12 children. These children, in their turn, married well, and the family spread, until by 1836 Mme. Olivier was grandmere to fifty living grandchildren. In time her name was to run through Creole society like a glamorous thread; she was to become the ancestress of a good part of Creole New Orleans.
By the 1830's New Orleans was riding the crest of commercial and cultural success. Cotton and cane flowed down the river like a tide of gold. Business was booming everywhere throughout the city. The theater and the opera had reached a peak of excellence scarcely equaled elsewhere in the country. The arts flourished. Nightly balls and banquets were glittering public affairs. Great new hotels were springing up to accommodate the surge into city. New mansions were being built to reflect this power and glory. Life in town was scintillating for the Creoles.
Probably Mme. Olivier had been planning for some time to move permanently into this amusing city. The children were handling her affairs on the plantation. The young people were spending more and more time in New Orleans. The boys were in school here and in Paris; the girls were attending the balls and making their debuts at the opera. For some years she had owned a good piece of property on Toulouse near Bourbon. Around the corner, on Royal, the fashionable brothers de Pouilly had just finished the St. Louis Exchange Hotel. Her property was in the very heart of this feverishly festive part of the city. So in 1838, through her eldest son Jean Baptist Olivier, Mme. Engaged Jacques Nicolas Bussiere de Pouilly to create her quite perfect and beautiful house in town.

Original design of Mme. Oliviers mansion by architect J.N. de Pouilly

Jacques Nicolas Bussiere de Pouilly, architect.

Born in Bourgogne, France in 1805, Messrs. de Pouilly was educated at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, before moving to New Orleans around 1830. He quickly made a name for himself in the sphere of architecture, and in 1835 won the much sought after commission to build the St. Louis Exchange Hotel (which was later tragically lost to fire). Before his death in 1875, Messrs. De Pouilly undeniably left his mark on his adopted home city. Among his creations that are still with us are the Dufilho Pharmacy (now the Pharmacy Museum on Chartres street, definitely worth a visit), the statue of Andrew Jackson in the center of the Place d'arms (Jackson Square), the 1850 restoration and expansion of the St. Louis Cathedral, and numerous fine homes, buildings, monuments and tombs. During the time he worked on the Olivier House, he had a partnership with his brother, Joseph. Together they had a plaster company. It is very probable that 'de Pouilly, Freres & Co.' provided the plaster for the cornices and ceiling moldings and chandelier medallions which, to this day, grace the Olivier House.

As Mme. Olivier's mansion was originally designed there was a business establishment on the ground floor. The front was all arches, with a great porte-cochere leading back to a stable in the rear. The present stunning Greek Revival doorway, decorated with rosettes, was added a few years later, undoubtedly by de Pouilly, when the owners converted the ground floor rooms into parlors. From the beginning the winding stair, with its imported African mahogany banister, soared up to a premier etage where Mme. Olivier held sway in magnificent salons, a splendid dining hall, and bedrooms of ample proportions and intricate detail. There was even said to be a ballroom on the top floor at one time. The rooms were stately and elegant and of the noblest proportions. Ceilings rise to 14 and 16 feet in height, walls up to 18 inches thick in some places, and wide cypress boards polished until they shine like glass. The interior wood trim shows the work of a master. The kitchen, the ironing room and laundry, the "cave" for wine, the work rooms and servants quarters were all in the great garconniere which extends into the courtyard from the rear of the house. It was said that Mme. Olivier's was one of the most beautifully furnished mansions of its day.
The new house bloomed, and Mme. enjoyed her days here. The children came in for the great Creole holidays, great granddaughters were introduced to society, and there were wedding parties and accouchements in these great rooms. But for Mme. Olivier time was drawing too swiftly to a close. Hers had been a fine, full life. On February 2, 1843, when she was 71 years old, Mme. Olivier died. She was buried beside her husband in the quaint little cemetary of San Bernardo de Nueva Galvez on Bayou Terre aux Boeufs. Two years later her succession was settled, and the great town house passed into the hands of Felix Labatut. At that time an inventory was taken of Mme. Olivier's household possessions. This is a unique social document, for it provides a complete picture of the way a great house of the time was furnished. One is impressed reading the inventory with the amplitude and luxury of this way of life, the lavish supplies of the household furnishings and bibelots.

The famous inventory (left)

 

French Opera House, next door to 828 Toulouse (destroyed by fire in 1919)

In 1859 the French Opera House, designed by celebrated architects Gallier and Esterbrook was built next door, on the corner of Toulouse and Bourbon. This made the already luxurious mansion built by Mme. Olivier one of the most prestigious addresses in Creole New Orleans. The opera house was a palace fit for the kings and queens of a sophisticated society to pursue a continuing love affair with cultural pleasures. One account enthused: "There was not a single building in Louisiana as closely identified with the history of our festivals and revelries of the highest order as the French Opera House. This lyric temple was truly the patrimony of all Louisianians, the scene of wondrous gatherings and sumptuous receptions at which generations of New Orleanians met on pleasure bent, in order to forget the ills and cares of life 'neath the dispelling influence of suave and rapturous music." Tragically, the opera house was destroyed by fire in 1919.

The house had by this time become the home of Ms. Elizabeth Locoul. Ms. Locoul had owned and operated a plantation near the city, and kept this mansion as her city residence during the social season. After turning her plantation affairs over to her 2 children, she retired permanently to this house. Ms. Locoul kept season tickits to the opera, next door, and held suptuous dinners and gatherings in the house. By some accounts she was said to be a serious woman, and somewhat cantankerous in her later years, but her granddaughter Laura held fond memories of nights spent at the house, and evenings at the opera with her grandmother, Elizabeth. Elizabeths son, Emile, owned and operated "Laura Plantation", a working plantation said to be the place where the "Briar Rabbit" and "Uncle Remus" stories of "Song of the South" fame were first translated and written into English. During the War betwwen the States, Ms. Locouls home was taken by Union soldiers, and badly desecrated by the northern soldiers and officers during their seizure of the house. Ms. Elizabeth did regain the mansion after the war and continued to live and entertain here, until her death in her home in 1895. (Although some say she has not left it, to this day!)

 

The Olivier mansion in the early 1960's, just prior to complete renovation

After Ms. Lacoul died, the mansion passed through a number of owners. It was operated as a boarding house for a number of years. Eentually the mansion began to slip into a slow, steady decline. By 1959 an investment group from Texas bought the house with the intention of demolishing it to make room for a parking lot, for their hotel development, on the vacant opera house site. The talk of destroying one of the Vieux Carre's best examples of Creole Greek Revival architecture came as a call to arms to local residents. Through tireless efforts of French quarter and New Orleans residents, and the determination of the Vieux Carree Commission, the demolition plans were stopped, and a wonderful restoration effort was born. The mansion was purchased by a group of local investors, know as the Southern Land Title Co. Architect Henry Grimball headed the project. In 1965, after an extensive $750,000 renovation, the Olivier House opened as a luxury apartment hotel. In 1970 the mansion was purchased by the Danner family, who still own and operate it as a hotel. The Olivier House remains a special place were history survives, and where new memories are made every day. Please come and visit Madam Olivier's last proud achievement.

1880's house corner of Toulouse (now part of the Olivier House Hotel)