Amelia Street

Yes, it is.  The childhood home of Mona Mayfair.

Like the Mayfair house on First Street, the house on the corner of Amelia and Saint Charles Streets became the primary residence of Mayfairs whose plantation home had become uninhabitable.  Unlike Riverbend, the plantation the First Street Mayfairs had come from, the main house at Fontevrault Plantation was not washed away by the Mississippi River.  It flooded.  

The split in the Mayfair line occurred because of Julien Mayfair.  A pistol duel between Julien and Augustin Mayfair that Julien obviously won led to Augustin Mayfair's line splitting from the Legacy line to establish their own plantation, Fontevrault.  The rivalry would extend well into the early 20th century as exhibited by the argument between Julien and the "Fontevrault Mayfairs" when he stormed over to the Amelia Street house to collect his granddaughter, Evelyn.  This was obviously long before she became Ancient Evelyn.  

It would be Ancient Evelyn, who had been born to Barbara Mayfair and Cortland Mayfair, Julien's son, who would, through her daughter Laura Lee, become the great-grandmother of Mona Mayfair.  Barbara had died in childbirth, leaving Evelyn to be raised by the Mayfairs of Amelia Street but confined to an upper bedroom due to her rather frightening powers. 

Evelyn's own association with the First Street Mayfairs that included her relationship with Stella Mayfair is told in Lasher.  It is through Evelyn that Mona was aware of the existence of Julien's Victrola, hidden away in the Mayfair house on First Street.  Julien's ghost would later recount to Michael Curry the events that would transpire between him and Evelyn at First Street after he removed her from the Amelia Street house and up until his death in 1914.  Julien would also recite to Michael Curry what Evelyn had first recited to him: a prophetic warning of Lasher's intentions and what they would cost the Mayfairs in the form of a poem.

Anne Rice owned multiple properties in New Orleans around the time she wrote the Lives of the Mayfair Witches novels.  While the house on First Street was her primary residence, she also owned a house on the corner of Saint Charles and Amelia Streets with many Italianate-style windows that give the house a delightfully whimsical look.  It is this house, the John R. Rouse house, that Rice used as the Amelia Street house in the Lives of the Mayfair Witches novels.

A Tale of Two Houses

There are several features in this house that are similar to the house on First Street. For example, both houses have a "double parlor". However, they are not the same house. I've seen them confused with one another, though.

The Ultimate Guide to Plantations of Louisiana 1239 First Street & 3711 St Charles Avenue

The Amelia Street Gallery

Courtesy of DIRT and Realtor.com

Amelia Street Gallery One

I'm taking a guess with a few of the rooms but wanted something more descriptive than "Room" to identify them.  This first gallery includes more recent images of the interior, I believe, but in them, you can see more details of this house.  One thing that always catches my eye when I look at this house is the shape of the windows.  The ones that have rounded tops.  These Italianate-style windows give the house that whimsical look that is so delightful in a way that is hard to describe.  If you look carefully, especially at the upstairs windows, you can see what the rounded tops (including the shutters) look like from inside the house...

Amelia Street Gallery Two

3711 St Charles Avenue New Orleans

Thanks to Pinterest, I was able to find more images of the Amelia Street house with furnishings. The images originally appeared on Curbed and in an article in Good Housekeeping. The images are no longer available in the online articles, but you will find links to those articles in the real estate resources above.

And here I thought I'd only have a drawing of the house as it appeared in The Witches' Companion.

This house was used in the novel Lasher. It was the childhood home of Mona Mayfair before the deaths of Alicia and Gifford, the increasing drunkenness of her father Patrick and Rowan's sterilization and ensuing inability to produce a legacy heir of the required vintage. Upon these events, Mona moved to the First Street house, the traditional home of the Legacy Witch.

However, she did not abandon the property and much like Anne Rice herself was doing at the time she wrote Lasher, Mona had the house fully restored, the completion being noted at the end of Taltos.

Apparently, she did a good job. Take a look.

Footnotes

Rice, Anne. Taltos (Lives of Mayfair Witches Book 3) (p. 31). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 1

Rice, Anne. Lasher (Lives of Mayfair Witches Book 2) (p. 12). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 2

Rice, Anne. Blood Canticle (The Vampire Chronicles, Book 10) (p. 69). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 3

30 April 2013