Tennessee Williams Final New Orleans Home Designated Literary Landmark

Friends of Libraries U.S.A. and Friends of the New Orleans Public Library dedicated the country's newest Literary Landmark June 23 during the American Library Association Annual Conference in New Orleans. The last home owned by playwright and memoirist Tennessee Williams now sports a plaque designating the location's historic pedigree.

Pictured at right during the recent dedication are Williams scholar Dr. Kenneth Holditch (left), FOLUSA Executive Director Sally Reed (center), and current owner Dr. Brobson Lutz (right).

This description of the home, now owned by Dr. Brobson Lutz and Dr. Kenneth Combs, was written by contributing writer Stephanie Bruno and orignally appeared in The Times-Picayune in New Orleans in 2004. Reprinted by permission.

If New Orleans and the Vieux Carré were Tennessee Williams' spiritual home, then the masonry townhouse at 1014 Dumaine St. was, as much as any other place, his literal one. Williams bought the building in 1962 and still owned it when he died in 1983. But more than a century before the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright took up residence there, the property had been associated with several other men of major importance in New Orleans' history.

According to the property's ownership summary in the Louisiana Collection of the New Orleans Public Library, the earliest established sale of the property was in 1784, from Carlos de Reggio to Juan Ventura Morales, both influential during the city's Spanish era. De Reggio's title was "alferez real," or official standard bearer for public ceremonies, and he was a ranking member of the Cabildo (or Spanish municipal government).

After buying the property from de Reggio, Morales held it for 22 years, first while an "alcalde ordinario," or voting member of the Spanish Cabildo, and later as intendant, a powerful figure who represented the Royal Treasury and wielded authority over matters of police, justice and war. Morales' control was strengthened in 1799 when the crown transferred partial control of the territory's land-grant office from the governor to the intendant. Even after King Charles IV of Spain transferred the Louisiana Territory to France in 1802, Morales stayed on to administer the colony while his replacement, Pierre Clement de Laussat, was en route from France.

Morales then did something that stunned President Thomas Jefferson and fueled the United States' interest in acquiring the Louisiana territory: He rescinded America's right to deposit cargo in New Orleans without paying duties. According to Smithsonian magazine, "Morales' proclamation meant that American merchandise could no longer be stored in New Orleans warehouses. As a result, trappers' pelts, agricultural produce and finished goods risked exposure and theft on open wharfs while awaiting shipment to the East Coast and beyond. The entire economy of America's Western territories was in jeopardy." Morales' action, the article continues, "shocked Napoleon himself."

The only way for the United States to secure in perpetuity its rights to the river and port was to buy the territory from France. Not long after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Secretary of State James Madison deported Morales, who sold the Dumaine Street property the following year.

In 1808, Julien Poydras acquired the parcel, one of several he owned in the Vieux Carré. Born in France, Poydras had come to New Orleans via Santo Domingo in 1768 and established himself as a peddler. His business grew and he eventually became a wealthy merchant. He fought with the Spanish in the American Revolution and later established a plantation on False River in Pointe Coupee Parish. In 1804, thanks in part to a friendship with Gov. William C.C. Claiborne, he was elected president of the first legislative council of the Territory of Orleans and became the director of the Louisiana Bank.

During Poydras' ownership of the Dumaine Street property, he was elected as a delegate to Congress from the Louisiana territory, was president of Louisiana's first constitutional convention and served as president of the recently established state Senate. He invested heavily in his friend Bertrand Gravier's new "Faubourg Ste. Marie," the American Sector upriver from Canal Street, and Poydras Street was named for him. When he died in 1824, Poydras left a great deal of money to philanthropic causes, including the Poydras Asylum on Magazine Street and endowments to West Baton Rouge and Pointe Coupee parishes to finance dowries for indigent brides. New Roads celebrates Julien Poydras Day every year.

Poydras sold the property in 1819 to Francois d'Hebecourt, a French-born nobleman who attended military school with Napoleon Bonaparte. D'Hebecourt had arrived in New Orleans in the early 1800s and established a school for boys in the Vieux Carré. When d'Hebecourt built a new school on Bayou St. John, he sold the Dumaine Street property back to Poydras.

The earliest reference to a building on the property was in the 1819 sale. Before that time, the description referred to a large parcel of land at the corner of Burgundy and Dumaine streets "with all buildings and improvements thereon." Additional research would be needed to verify whether the "brick building" in the 1819 transaction is the building at 1014 Dumaine St. today.

In the century after Poydras' death, the property changed hands many times. In 1922, Calogero Pisciotta bought it, and the Pisciotta family owned it for more than 30 years. It changed hands twice more before being sold to Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams and his "Two Rivers Enterprises" in 1962.

"Tennessee lived -- and wrote -- in many French Quarter locations. His last New Orleans residence and the building he actually owned was 1014 Dumaine St.," said Ellen Johnson, publicist for the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival, . The festival offers a slate of literary walking tours, some led by Kenneth Holditch, a Williams scholar and author with Richard Freeman Leavitt of "Tennessee Williams and the South." Other sites figuring in Williams' life in New Orleans include 722 Toulouse St., 632 St. Peter St., the Hotel Monteleone, Galatoire's, the Court of Two Sisters (where he worked as a waiter), Marti's (where Peristyle is today), the Quarter Scene and an assortment of bars and neighborhood restaurants.

Not long before Williams' death at age 71, he agreed to sell his Dumaine Street building to Kenneth Combs and Brobson Lutz, neighbors whose rear yard abutted his. According to Lutz, "He was tired of the upkeep of the place but wanted to keep his apartment. He had recently paid a mad Russian to make some repairs, but the guy had taken him to the cleaners. We agreed to buy the place and give him a lease on his apartment for $150 a month. When we toured the building right before signing the purchase agreement, he was upstairs drinking with some friends." Lutz still recalls a filthy shag carpet and musty odor that permeated the place. "It was obvious that Tennessee did not believe 'cleanliness is next to Godliness.'"

Williams died before the act of sale went through, so Combs and Lutz ultimately acquired the building from his estate. Combs and Lutz still live nearby and have maintained Williams' building much as it was when the writer lived there, minus the shag carpet and musty odor.

For a complete schedule of literary walking tours and other events of the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival, visit www.tennesseewilliams.net or call (504) 581-1144. To find out how to dedicate your own Literary Landmark with FOLUSA, visit www.folusa.org or call 1-800-9-FOLUSA.