It is easy to classify a small, quaint residence in the French Quarter as a "Creole Cottage," but within this building type comes a series of variations. Like most building styles, designs change over time to accommodate larger living areas and growing families.

Bradley Handwerger

The Guillot house today.

The 1¾- story Creole cottage located at 1114-16 Royal Street - also known as the Guillot House - is a great example of how building types are adapted over time.

Constructed in 1826, this unique "one-and-three-quarters-cottage" has the look of a Caribbean or West Indies residence. Before the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, New Orleans had strong ties to French and Spanish controlled islands and it was common for colonists to spend time on the islands on their way to New Orleans.

Flared hipped roofs with an overhang supported by wrought iron brackets, tall French doors and pastel colored stucco are all building details from the West Indies that are seen in the French Quarter.

A large number of Santo Domingans immigrated to New Orleans after the slave uprising of 1791 and the local Catholic Church was under the umbrella of the Diocese of Havana until 1793. The parallel climates of the Caribbean and New Orleans also had a role in this type of cottage.

Undoubtedly, all of these factors influenced New Orleans architecture and building types of the early 19th Century.

Creole cottages greatly vary in size and living space and have slowly developed into multi-family dwellings. The width, depth and height of cottages have adapted by changing the scale of the houses while keeping the original simple design. The raising of the walls created a livable area, where before, the low attic level did not allow for use.

As we see at the Guillot House, low and wide casement openings were installed in the large attic level in place of dormers on the roof. Eventually, this practice evolved into two-story cottages, not to be confused with a townhouse.

The difference is a two-story cottage still maintains the four bays across the front and an end gable roof. Clearer examples of this are free standing and not built in a row.

The Guillot House in the mid 1800s.

The Guillot House has seen few changes since its construction in 1826. The four-bay, brick-stuccoed house still has four openings on the ground floor and four smaller windows on the upper portion. Originally, the ground floor consisted of two center windows, each flanked by a French door.

Today, all of the openings have been altered into tall French doors. This change also has altered the interior, allowing for staircases to the second floor through the new doors where before, these would have been large double parlors.

All of the openings still have louvered shutters and the small windows on the half floor have the original railings with wooden spindles protecting the casement windows behind them.

The steeply pitched roof extends approximately five feet over the sidewalk and still displays the original ironwork. The primitive cut sheet metal decoration is one of the last of its kind in the French Quarter. The overhang is supported by curved wrought iron brackets.

Due to the steep pitch of the roof, the ceiling height under the eaves is surprisingly high for a Creole cottage.

Joseph Guillot purchased the land from the Ursuline nuns in 1825. Before the lot was sold, the nuns used the lot as a recreation area for their pensioners. Guillot lived in the house until 1839, and in the 1850s, it was sold Edmond Forstall, a renowned banker, sugar plantation owner and patron of academics and the arts.

The building is still used as a residence today and boasts a glowing pastel yellow façade with blue shutters. Even after 182 years, the building still looks very much like it did when constructed, even down to the Caribbean paint colors and simple design.