533 Royal St
New Orleans, LA 70130, USA

Merieult House (The Historic New Orleans Collection;The Kemper and Leila Wil) - National Register of Historic Places

"Statement of Significance:


This building is significant for the following reasons:
1. It was built in 1792, during the Spanish Colonial period in New Orleans
2. It is the only surviving building in the area of a destructive fire that razed the upper part of the little City of New Orleans from Orleans Street to Canal Street in 1794.
3. It is one of the seven oldest buildings in the city; Ursuline Convent, 17^5-50; Mne John's Legacy, 1788; Lafitte Blacksmith Shop, post 1781; Ossorno House, 1781; St. Louis Cathedral, 1789-94; Cavelier House, 1789; Merieult House, 1792.
4. Merieult House is an important example of a combined business establishment and dwelling in colonial New Orleans. It was customary here for the commercial or professional operation to be on the ground floor with the family residence above. In Merieult's inventory the ground floor was described as having ""six Magazines."" his far-flung shipping enterprises.
Jean Francois Merieult was a merchant prince of his day who operated a fleet of ships between Le Havre, London, the West Coast of Africa, St. Domingue, Havana and New Orleans. AroundJ.788 he settled here as a commission merchant, making New Orleans his headquarters-and home for the rest of his life.

It was the commission merchants who financed the plantation system of the deep south, advancing money on crops, buying abroad for their clients on this credit. They were, in effect, private bankers; for there was no bank in New Orleans until Territorial times, when Governor Claiborne established the Bank of Louisiana and the Federal Government built a branch of the Bank of the United States to stabilize the uncertain economy.

Merieult House has served as a commission establishment until after 18^7, and as such played a significant role in the local economy. After Merieult's death two of his business associates occupied the property. Then it was sold in 1832 to Lizarda Hermanos, Cuban commission merchants with offices in Havana, Mexico City, Paris and London.

With this purchase they established Merieult House as their New Orleans headquarters.
At this time an old terrace-roofed warehouse in the courtyard was given a new front and a second story. Fine Greek Revival interior detail was installed in some second story rooms and the great ground floor chamber, which seemingly became the ""counting house."" From this elegant private bank, the Lizardis operated their shipping interests, invested in railroads, managed their extensive real estate, and continued to finance the plantation economy.

In 1857, at the death of the senior partner, the Lizardi firm sold this property, and its life as a significant commercial enterprise ended.
5. Merieult House is now the repository of a great collection of paintings, prints, maps, books, documents, ephemera and artifacts concerned with Louisiana and New Orleans. As a necessary adjunct to the pictorial collection a large and important compilation of biographical and critical material on Louisiana artists, both native and transient, has been assembled through many years of unremitting research. This unique collection has proven to be of value to scholars and fellow art institutions throughout the state as an important reference resource.
In its recent adaptation to museum purposes, the original rooms have been made into eleven galleries for the public display of this collection. These exhibitions are to be changed periodically throughout the years. In this adaptation the original nature of these late l8th century rooms, updated with early Greek Revival detail, has not been altered.

The second story of the counting house is presently serving as curatorial quarters and a library which is not yet open to the public. It is planned that the great ground floor room of the counting house will become the study center, when the library is ready to be opened to scholars in 1972.

6. During recent restoration, walls were opened and extremely important information was gleaned on late colonial building techniques in New Orleans. A set of interesting documentary photographs was taken of all these finds.

7. It was discovered, when the walls of the counting house were exposed, that the thrifty Merieult House masons had bonded, their-Spanish brick onto existing portions of an older French brick wall—probably belonging to the previous house on this site, erected in 1757 and destroyed by fire.

In these walls were French arches topped by Spanish-style arches of later vintage. Long narrow apertures, in the lower portion of the walls, contained wrought iron ""thistle"" inserts through-which the rooms breathed.""

Here, too, were old bricks coated with a burnt-looking glaze, indicating the fierce heat of a great conflagration—the only such artifacts remaining as physical evidence of the early destructive fires that twice destroyed the colonial city.

8. A collection of artifacts was acquired tis the restoration progressed: old iron hardware, shards of old plaster moldings and cornices, layers of late l8th and early 19th century French wall paper and borders, narrow French chimney breasts topped with delicate wooden moldings, encased in broad-bosomed Victorian over mantels, etc. All these details were carefully documented as to site and use, anticipating an exhibition on the architecture and archeology of the site.
9. Merieult House is architecturally true to type, being an excellent example of a Creole town house of both the period in which it was built and the date of its early Greek Revival alteration.
10. Merieult House has been restored in scrupulous detail by the leading scholarly restoration architectural firm in this area: Richard Koch end Samuel Wilson, Jr."