Walking Through the Garden District: The New Orleans Neighborhood That Built Itself to Win an Argument

If you only see one New Orleans neighborhood outside the French Quarter, make it the Garden District. This uptown pocket of the city is famous for its antebellum mansions, its ancient live oaks, and a very particular brand of old money that still lives behind those cast-iron fences today.

Walking the Garden District is unlike anywhere else in the city. Every mansion here was built by someone trying to prove a point, and almost every one of them has a story stranger than the last. Grab your walking shoes, because this neighborhood rewards a slow stroll.

TAKE A SELF-GUIDED TOUR OF THE GARDEN DISTRICT

Want to hear every story behind every gate, without needing to book a guide or stick to someone else's schedule?

The New Orleans' Garden District Walking Tour is a self-guided audio tour that walks you through the neighborhood at your own pace.

Along the way you'll discover:

• The cornstalk fence a Confederate colonel built for his homesick wife

• The mansion that later played a school for witches on American Horror Story

• The house where the only president of the Confederacy took his last breath

Most visitors finish the full route in about an hour.

Check out the New Orleans' Garden District Walking Tour here.

THE FENCE A HOMESICK WIFE NEVER FORGOT

In 1859, a Confederate colonel named Robert Short had a cast-iron fence made for his wife, who missed the cornfields of her native Kentucky. The fence, woven with cornstalks and morning glories, still stands today at Colonel Short's Villa, and it's become the most photographed fence in New Orleans.

The house behind it is a private residence, so the fence is the star of the show.

It survived the Civil War, a Union occupation, and over 150 years of New Orleans weather—some legends really do hold up.

THE MANSIONS AND THE MONEY BEHIND THEM

Every grand house in the Garden District tells the same underlying story. American merchants poured into New Orleans after the Louisiana Purchase, found a French and Spanish Creole city that didn't want them, and built the biggest, boldest houses they could to prove they belonged.

The wealth came from cotton brokerage, the middlemen between river plantations and the port. The columns, the cast iron, and the double galleries were all meant to be seen.

Not everyone here was a cotton broker: the neighborhood also has ice merchants, feed dealers, and one very narrow row of houses built for people who just needed a place to live.

WHERE HOLLYWOOD AND HISTORY COLLIDE

The Garden District has quietly become one of the most filmed neighborhoods in America. Buckner Mansion, the largest private home built in New Orleans before the Civil War, later played a school for witches on American Horror Story: Coven. Down the street, a private home once served as the retirement home in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails once lived in a Garden District house later bought by John Goodman.

Novelist Anne Rice lived in the Brevard-Clapp-Wisdom House, where she found inspiration for her vampire stories.

Even NBA star Zion Williamson has a house on this tour, bought as a gift for his mother.

THE PRESIDENT WHO DIED IN SOMEONE ELSE'S HOUSE

Jefferson Davis, the only president of the Confederate States of America, didn't come to New Orleans to die. He came to visit a friend, fell ill on the road, and never recovered. He died in a Garden District mansion on December 6, 1889, in a city Union forces had occupied twenty-seven years earlier.

Legend has it his ghost still wanders the house, looking for his boots.

The tour also passes the grave of Confederate General John B. Hood, who survived some of the worst battles of the Civil War only to lose his family to yellow fever in 1879.

Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, the tour's final stop, holds roughly 7,000 people, most buried above ground because the city sits below sea level.

PLAN YOUR TRIP

Ready to see the cornstalk fence, the Buckner Mansion, and the house where Jefferson Davis took his last breath for yourself? Our Garden District travel guide covers restaurant picks, hotel tips, and a full itinerary for your visit.

Check out our Garden District travel guide to plan your trip.