The Le Carpentier-Beaureguard-Keys House

Joseph Le Carpentier, an auctioneer, built this Greek Revival House for his own residence. The Consul of Switzerland, John A. Merle purchased the home from Monsoier Le Carpentier seven years later. It was around this time the house's formal garden was constructed.
Often the house is simply refered to as The Beaureguard House, named after it's most beloved and famous resident General Pierre G.T. Beaureguard of the Confederacy. He was a citizen of Louisiana and on his return to New Orleans after the war, lived at the house for eighteen months.
In the early 1900s the house was owned by an Italian Mafia family. There were parties, coming and going of all sorts of people and one night neighbors heard quarrling and gun fire. The family disapeared and were never seen again.
By 1925 the house was sold again. The new owner wanted to distroy the house and build a macaroni factory on the site. A group of local women became interested in saving the house were General Beaureguard stayed. They were able to raise funds to purchase it.
In 1944 Franes Parkinson Keyes, a novelist arrived in New Orleans and rented the house. She eventually took over the care and began restoration. Both the garden and the house were reconstructed to what they are today.
In 1948 the Keyes Foundation was formed and the house was entrusted to it's care. Mrs. Keyes used the cottage as her winter residence for 25 years. She wrote several boooks there namely, Dinner at Antoine's, Chess Player, and Blue Camillia.
The Beauregard room still contains antiques belonging to the General and his family.
People have said if you walk down Rue Chartres in the early morning hours around 2 or 3 am you can hear gun fire and the sounds of war from the house. No civil war skirmishes took place here however. Others say you can hear loud music, people arguing and gunfire from the mafia family's time. I have walked down Rue Chartres many times late at night and in the early hours of mourning before daylight as well as in the day. I have never heard anything at all. It is always very quiet adn quite dark, as it is a museum now. Some people have reported the ghost of Mrs. Keyes dog inside the house when a blind woman's dog reacted as if another dog were in the room. Visitors have said they felt a presence there.
Perhaps there are spirits of the many owners still present.

�copyright 1997,1998,1999,2000,2001 by Germaine. I wrote all of the text. DO NOT borrow or steal anything on this page.
Germaine's Crescent City Haunted Places In New Orleans