New Orleans Architecture ~ The Courtyard

This charming example of a New Orleans' courtyard was printed in 1929. In the Vieux Carre or French Quarter of New Orleans, many of the houses were built around a court of gardens. In the Colonial period, the old French lots were wide and spacious but within time, houses rose with new and closer alignments on deeps and narrow properties. To keep costs down, adjacent buildings rested on common side walls with continuous street fronts, pushing open spaces rearward giving rise to walled spaces with vertical accents.