Longue Vue House and Gardens The Architecture, Interiors, and Gardens of New Orleans' Most Celebrated Estate

The stunning interiors and glorious gardens of New Orleans’s unrivaled jewel and architectural masterpiece. Longue Vue House and Gardens, accredited by the American Alliance of Museums and listed as a national historic landmark, was designed and built between 1934 and 1942 by landscape architect Ellen Biddle Shipman and architects Charles and William Platt for Edgar Bloom and Edith Rosenwald Stern, New Orleans’s foremost mid-twentieth-century philanthropists and civil-rights activists. The mansion and its surrounding eight acres of garden spaces, with varied designs ranging from the formal to the wild, draw upon Southern architectural traditions and native Louisiana flora, even as they echo the contemporaneous garden-design movement that set the stage for the creation of some of the most breathtaking garden estates in the country. Lush photography, supporting architectural drawings, and an informative text bring the main house and gardens to life and establish the estate as an enduring symbol to its creators’ contributions to building a just society.

Charles Davey is the Design and Production Director for the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art’s magazine The Classicist, as well as a writer and independent book producer. His latest book, Fessenden House, about a house in Washington, DC, was privately published. Previous books include Carolands: Ernest Sanson, Achille Duchê­­ne, and Willis Polk (San Mateo County Historical Association). He is currently reviewing other houses that deserve similar treatment to Carolands, Fessenden House, and Longue Vue.
 Carol McMichael Reese is the Favrot Professor in the Tulane School of Architecture, where she offers courses in architectural history and theory. Her books and articles focus on contemporary architecture and urban planning in the Americas. She has also served on the board of directors of Longue Vue since 2004.