The Witching Hour: The Mayfair House

In the Lives of the Mayfair Witches novels, Anne Rice used her own home on First Street in New Orleans' Garden District as the home of the legacy Mayfair Witches. This page of the Parlor explores this house, the historic Brevard-Rice house.

On this page are various photos of the Mayfair House and all things Mayfair that came from www.annerice.com and from an historical survey done in 1964. At that time, the house was owned by Judge Minor Wisdom. The survey included photos of the house from 1964, and also included photos taken around 1933, which would have been the year before Pamela Starr Clapp passed away. Her late husband, Emory Clapp, bought the house from the widower of Elisabeth Brevard, whose father, Albert Hamilton Brevard, had the house built in 1857.

More details can be found about the house's history on House of Patterns, and a closer look at some of the previous owners of 1239 First Street can be found on First Street Family Gallery.

Over the years, other properties formerly owned by Anne Rice have incorrectly been identified as the home of the Mayfair Witches in the novels. For the AMC series, a house similar to the Brevard-Rice house was used as the Mayfair Witches house. See the bottom section, NOT the Mayfair Witches House, for an overview of the other properties.

On YouTube

The Brevard-Rice House Playlist on YouTube

Click the thumbnail to your left to go to the Parlor's YouTube playlist of videos about the house at 1239 First Street in New Orleans. The image is from the video that has been embedded in this spot for years and is now included in the playlist.

The video that the thumbnail image you see is from a realtor's video of the house. It was recommended to me by Richie in Philadelphia. It has other shots of the house and grounds not seen in the photos. Thank you, Richie!!

Come Into My Parlor...

The original Black and white images I have always had on the Parlor are by far some of the most well-known and widely available images of the Brevard Rice house. They were taken in 1933 and in 1964.

Update: I did a little deeper a dive on the Library of Congress website, which has more information regarding the historical photos. The photos taken in or about 1933 are identified as having been from the collection of Samuel J. Wilson, and the photos taken in the fall of 1964 were taken by photographer Dan Leyrer. To learn more, you can access the Library of Congress's photo gallery.

The Keyhole Doorway in 1964

Also included here are photos of the First Street house from Anne Rice dot com, which give us a look at the house as it appeared when she owned it and wrote the Mayfair Witches novels in it. She owned the house from about 1989 to 2004.

Stella's Dance Floor...

The Double Parlor

In this room is where Stella was shot to death, where Rowan declares her decision to claim the house and the legacy, where her wedding reception is held, and where she willingly comes to Lasher for the first time...

The Double Parlor in 1933

The Double Parlor in 1964

Drowning Pool

The pool that Stella had installed during the "Roaring Twenties". She once filled it with champagne for one of her wild parties. When Rowan returns sixty years later, the pool is a dank, murky swamp that defies restoration.

The Swimming Pool annerice dot com

The Pool and Cabana

However, Michael Curry's restoration project reveals that it is quite intact, and Michael himself has a vision of ghostly party guests with a panicked Arthur Langtry shouting, "Come away from there, man!" just months before he nearly drowns - for the second time - in this pool.

The Dining Room 1964

A Gathering of Family...

In this room is where Rowan has her "interview" with Carlotta Mayfair, who taunts and provokes Rowan into killing her, where Rowan sees the trees outside moving by Lasher's will, and where family meetings are convened in the First Street house after Rowan's disappearance.

The Dining Room annerice dot com

Deirdre's World

The Side Porch 1933

The Side Porch

The top of this side porch is where Evelyn Mayfair (Ancient Evelyn by the time of Lasher) climbs to Julien's attic room to couple with him, and from where Antha is pushed to her death by an enraged Carlotta.

From 1976 to 1989, the first floor deck is where Deirdre (Antha's daughter, Stella's granddaughter, and the mother of Rowan Mayfair) languishes in a rocking chair, unable to defend herself or her daughter against Lasher. Nor does she seem to want to. In a vision of Deirdre's thoughts, she seems to be glad for Lasher's company during her convalescence. According to Carlotta, she "writhed like a cat" under Lasher's touch despite being otherwise comatose from the Thorazine.

The Side Porch annerice dot com

The steps in the photo are the steps Michael Curry cleared from the brush and overgrowth during the restoration of the home, proving that the side porch was originally designed to be open (see the pictures of the plans).

Deirdre's Oak

Deirdre's Oak was where Rowan's mother would swing and play with Lasher as a child, and it was she who carved the name "Lasher" into the trunk of the massive oak tree. Note the garconniere (sic?) in the background in one of the photos.

"Dierdre's Oak" annerice dot com

History In Color

I've added color to the photos via Playback, and the interior shots may or may not represent the colors in the room in those two time periods.

The exterior photos came out beautifully, I think! Colorization still had the effect of bringing out some of the details of the rooms, I think. I wonder if there were more photos taken at those two times...

NOT the Mayfair Witches House

In the novels, anyway.

Anne Rice owned a number of properties when she lived and worked in New Orleans after returning in or around 1988. The properties she owned and some of the features and items in them would make appearances in her novels. In the Lives of the Mayfair Witches series, like her other novels, more than one property she owned was used as a setting. Because she owned more than one house in New Orleans, this has, no doubt, led to some of the confusion as to which house was used as a particular house in the novels. This is why the Parlor has recently been hoping to clear up some of the confusion by providing more information on the properties.

1239 First Street

The Brevard-Rice House

And just in case you missed it... THIS house in the image to the left is the Mayfair Witches house of the novels. It is the Brevard-Rice house at 1239 First Street in New Orleans' Garden District. Let's start here.

I do not know the reason Anne Rice's former home at 1239 First Street was unavailable for use in the series. There is plenty to document that it is indeed the house used in the Lives of the Mayfair Witches as the home of the legacy Mayfair Witches.

Specifically, the house that is part of the Legacy, handed down to each Designee of the Legacy, from mother to daughter, since Katherine Mayfair had the house constructed and added to the Legacy. This house, at 1239 First Street in the Garden District, is the house that is the subject of the page of the Parlor you are on at the moment.

The Witching Hour Title Pages 1990

If you look at the title pages of both the first edition hardcover of The Witching Hour from November 1990 and the title page of the first Trade edition from November 1991, you will see a sketch of the Mayfair house across both pages. It is detailed enough that it is very clear Anne Rice did indeed use her own home (at the time) on First Street as the house Rowan Mayfair inherits upon the death of her mother, Deirdre Mayfair.

Above are the title pages of the hard cover and Trade editions of The Witching Hour. The images of the title pages and copyright page of the first edition come from Bookshop Apocalypse. The images of the house on both the title pages of the first edition.

The Witching Hour Copyright Page

The Witching Hour May 1993

The cover of the May 1993 Mass Market edition do make it clear Anne Rice did indeed use her home on First Street in New Orleans' Garden District as the home of the Mayfair Witches.

The Soria-Creel House

It is the Soria-Creel house, which was not a property owned by Anne Rice, that was used in the AMC series. Shown here is a photograph of the Soria-Creel house that was taken from an angle the First Street house has often been photographed from.

The house and grounds appear to have been prepared for filming but see if you can find the differences in architectural features of the two houses. More about the Soria-Creel house here.

3711 St. Charles Avenue

The Rouse-Harp-Mitchell-Kirkpatrick House

This house, referred to in the Lives of the Mayfair Witches novels as the Amelia Street house, at 3711 St. Charles Avenue, was owned by Anne Rice at one point. This house has been referred to as the "Mayfair Witches house" at various points, which is true--partly.

The Mayfairs who built and lived in this particular house in the novels certainly include Mayfair witches, most notably Mona Mayfair. However, this was not the house built by Katherine Mayfair and included in the Legacy, which was handed down from mother to daughter. This was the house built by the descendants of Augustin Mayfair, who was killed in a pistol duel with (and by) Julien Mayfair. The house is the "Fontevrault outpost" because it was where the Mayfairs who came from the plantation, Fontevrault, went when the plantation was no longer...above water.

For more discussion on the Mayfairs of Amelia Street and Fontevrault, you will find interesting tidbits (and photos) on this page of the Parlor:

Amelia Street - The Fontevrault Outpost

St. Elizabeth's Orphanage

Another house that has occasionally been mistakenly identified as the Mayfair Witches house is this particular piece of real estate, St. Elizabeth's, a former orphanage and Catholic girls' school at 1314 Napoleon Ave. Anne Rice did own it at one point and used it to house her extraordinary doll collection.

1314 Napoleon Ave.

We Went There: St. Elizabeth’s Chapel Converted Into a Luxury Condo in New Orleans ~ By Craig Donofrio, Realtor.com, May 1, 2015

Anne Rice Doll Collection St Elizabeths

Random tidbit: my great-grandmother also collected dolls. I think she would have loved this!

Where this doll collection does figure into the Lives of the Mayfair Witches is in the third novel, Taltos. In particular, the Bru doll.

If I'm not mistaken, in that cabinet just right of the center of this image are dolls of Lestat, Louis and Claudia!

Anne Rice’s Doll Auction: Is it a stake through her heart? ~ by Stephanie Finnegan, DOLLS Magazine, July 19, 2010

Which is also noteworthy as, if I recall correctly, St. Elizabeth's, in real life a former orphanage (or the site of one), appears in the Vampire Chronicles as a property owned by Lestat.

However, it is not a property used as the home of the Mayfair Witches.

To see more New Orleans architecture similar to these properties and to 1239 First Street, there is an overview of a selection of properties, including other homes that have also been mistaken for the Mayfair Witches house, on this page of the Parlor:

Exploring New Orleans Architecture

Apparently, I'm Supposed to...

Anne Rice FB Parlor Post 2014

...according to the search engines.

Strange thing about the Internet: on social media, the rule (usually without exception) is, "Thou Shalt NOT Pluggeth Thyself". When it comes to search engines, it seems the opposite is true. Well, alrighty then...

When Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches first premiered on AMC in January 2023, there was a great deal of interest in its filming locations. One thing that was of great interest is why the house used as the New Orleans home of the Mayfair Witches looked like Anne Rice's former residence.

One article that explored this appeared on Distractify, and in it, a post Anne Rice made on her Facebook page in 2014 was explored:

Was 'Mayfair Witches' Filmed in Anne Rice's Hometown of New Orleans? Let's Investigate

The Mayfair House on Wayback Machine

This page contains the content from the original. At the time, the website still had its former domain, www.comeintomyparlor.com. I had always run the website on the web host, Tripod Lycos, however. For financial reasons, I was simply unable to continue to keep it on its former domain. If you do a Google search of "mayfair witches house", this former page will still come up under "Come Into My Parlor...The Mayfair Witches", "The Mayfair Witches Parlor", "Lycos Search", "Tripod Lycos"--and ALL of them still point to the original website.

Should you happen upon this new home of the Parlor but then lose your way, you can always find it by going to Chronicles of the Mayfair Witches, where you will find a link to this specific page under The Files on the Mayfair Witches. This new site is organized the same way the original site was, and you will find the navigation menu for this site specifically to your left.

Before I overhauled that website and eventually moved its content to the site you are on now, I did add the pages to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. I also did a second set of archived pages of the same site as I'd given each page of the Parlor a proper name in its URL.

And on this page of the Parlor, you'll find a directory of the pages archived on Wayback Machine at the time of its overhaul in February 2023:

Site Resources and Bibliography

I've never contacted Distractify to let them know that actually, the website is and always has been operational, but no longer under its former domain. I don't know why not, since the older script written by Anne Rice of The Witching Hour that appears on Site Resources and Bibliography was added after I obtained permission from Anne Rice to add it.

However, it's worth noting that the article was on the right track. Anne Rice did indeed use her own former home as the home of the Mayfair Witches in her Lives of the Mayfair Witches series. The home of the Designee of the Legacy, that is. In fact, the first novel, The Witching Hour, gives a very detailed description of the house and incorporates those details into the story.

I do not know the reason the actual house, known as the Brevard-Rice house, was not used for the AMC series. The house that was used, the Soria-Creel house, does have a lot of the same architectural features that are prevalent in a lot of Garden District houses built in the style of the Brevard-Rice house. Also consider that for many decades, the Mayfair house would have had this air of overgrown decay surrounding it, since the garden as a whole seemed to be about to swallow the entire house and grounds, but seemed to be stopped only by the flowers that continued to bloom. And Lasher did like to make sure there were flowers anywhere and everywhere.

That is a detail I think the show did REALLY well. Even the opening scenes show an old fountain, completely green but still with a pink water lily and the fountain still dripping with water...very much like the swampy, choked ruin of Stella Mayfair's swimming pool, where the fountains still inexplicably streamed water into it...

House Rule

This is a private residence. For purposes of privacy, the general rule is that the names of current and previous owners will not be listed here strictly because they did or do live there. The only exceptions are, of course, Anne Rice, those whose names appear in the actual construction history of the house, and, if widely available, media resources that name them in conjunction with whatever they're reporting on.

If you do happen to go on a tour of New Orleans' Garden District and one of the stops is this house, please use your good manners by remaining on your side of the property line and by not hassling or otherwise disturbing the occupants. It is also strongly advised, for your safety, that you do not go alone. Thank you.

Date of Publication of Original Page of the Parlor: 2008

From the Archive

The Mayfair House, 2008-2023

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