Camp Street Greek Revival Mansions and Race Street Corner

Why is it significant?

Walk along the flagstone sidewalks of Camp Street near Race Street, where you encounter one of the finest concentrations of antebellum Greek Revival residential architecture in the American South.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Walk along the flagstone sidewalks of Camp Street near Race Street, where you encounter one of the finest concentrations of antebellum Greek Revival residential architecture in the American South. Built throughout the 1840s and 1850s during the height of the Mississippi cotton boom, these monumental residences reflect the immense wealth and classical aspirations of American merchants who turned New Orleans into the financial powerhouse of the nation.

The Greek Revival style swept America during the 1830s and 1840s, driven by national sympathy for the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire. In New Orleans, wealthy Protestant newcomers embraced the style passionately, viewing Greek democratic temples as the ultimate architectural statement of American freedom, in deliberate contrast to the Catholic French Baroque architecture of the Vieux Carré.

Admire the architectural discipline of the facades: colossal two-story fluted columns with Doric and Corinthian capitals carved from cypress or cast in iron, monumental entablatures with dentil moldings, and wide entrance doors flanked by sidelights and topped with transom windows etched in classical Greek key patterns. Notice the elevated brick foundation basements: in flood-prone New Orleans, where the water table sits just inches below the grass, architects elevated the main parlor floor six to eight feet above the ground to protect against tropical storm surges. Many of these grand residences also featured detached two-story brick service quarters, stables for carriage teams, and cisterns in the rear courtyards to catch pure rainwater for domestic use. The broad front galleries provided a sheltered outdoor stage where families gathered during humid summer evenings to enjoy cooling breezes off the river. Front gardens burst with blooming white magnolias, pink oleanders, and sweet-smelling night-blooming jasmine, while ornate cast-iron fences with spear-point pickets demarcate private grounds.

Looking at the sheer monumental scale of these white-pillared porticos gleaming through the leafy green trees, you understand why travelers in the 1850s described New Orleans as the Athens of the South. The combination of Greek geometry and lush subtropical vegetation is unforgettable.

Continue southwest toward Margaret Place and the historic marble statue.