The Shotgun House

The Shotgun house is a narrow one-story dwelling without halls. Each room is placed behind the other in single file. The traditional description of why they are called "shotgun" is that if one fired a shotgun through the front door, the shot would pass through the lined-up doors of each room and out the back door. The facades of these houses received the most attention in terms of their stylistic decoration. From the 1850s through the 1870s, the porch was covered by the hipped roof of the cottage supported on square wooden columns, with the roofline concealed behind a substantial entablature.

During the 1880s and 1890s, the porch overhang changed to an exposed roofline, with a series of ornate machine-cut wood bracket supports. Beginning at the corner of St. Claude and Ursulines and proceeding up Ursuline Street toward Tremé Street you will find a row of well preserved shotguns with all of their Victorian
ornamentation. (1200 Block of Ursulines)

Creole Cottage

The Creole Cottage is a single story structure, generally comprised of four rooms, each of roughly equal size, with the rooms being arranged two across and two deep, with no interior hallways for circulation. At the rear of the cottage are often found two small rooms, known as cabinets, which were designed to be used for household storage. The space between the two cabinets is generally open onto the rear yard of the house, providing a covered, yet open space. The street facades of Creole cottages are generally symmetrical in the
organization of the door and window openings. The roofs of Creole cottages are an important element in their design. The majority of the cottages have a side-gabled roof, with a smaller number having full or partial hipped roofs. On cottages of stuccoed brick, or imported brick, the side walls rise above the roof line to form
parapets. Beginning at the 1200 block and continuing on the 1300 block of St. Claude you will notice three
perfect examples of this style.

Creole Townhouse

The Creole Townhouse is a two to four story structure with an iron balcony at second and sometimes third levels. It has a steeply pitched side-gabled roof and brick or stuccoed brick exterior. The exterior walls are built of "briquette entre poteaux" (brick between posts), a medieval construction technique which used heavy timbers to form the basic frame of the building, with the spaces between them being filled with small bricks.
Beginning at the corner of Gov. Nicholls and Tremé you will find a row of Creole Townhomes exhibiting all of the traditional elements. (1300 Block of Gov. Nicholls)