American architects consider the Garden District one of the finest concentrations of antebellum residential architecture in the country, built by the American merchants and planters who flooded into New Orleans after the Louisiana Purchase and who deliberately placed themselves uptown from the Creole French Quarter, separated by the commercial neutral ground of Canal Street. The Garden District was laid out in the 1830s on land that had been sugar cane plantations, and the wealthy Americans who bought lots here built with a competitive extravagance that reflected both their wealth and their desire to outshine the Creole aristocracy downriver. The result was block after block of Greek Revival and Italianate mansions set back from the sidewalk in deep gardens — a deliberate contrast to the French Quarter's street-hugging courtyard houses.
The oaks that line the streets were planted over generations and now form a continuous canopy that makes the district extraordinarily beautiful. The mansions were built by cotton factors, sugar brokers, and merchants whose fortunes rested entirely on the labor of enslaved people in the surrounding countryside and in the city itself. Walking these streets today requires holding both realities simultaneously: the undeniable beauty of what was built and the brutal system of human bondage that financed it.
Several houses are open for tours; others are occupied by celebrities, including Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock, who have made the district their New Orleans home.