First Street

First Street has now been put on the market for sale.

The principal Mayfair mansion is located on First Street in the Garden District of New Orleans. The house is inspired by Rice's own residence, which Rice had walked past as a child - as she has Michael Curry do - looking for ghosts and dreaming of one day having the money to buy such a magnificent place. When she returned to New Orleans as a successful writer to reestablish her childhood roots, she saw that the house was for sale and, feeling that it was "calling" to her, she bought it. She expresses her experience through Michael Curry: "How extraordinary it felt to have money in his pockets in his old home town. To know he could buy those houses, just the way he'd dreamed of it in the long-ago hopelessness and desperation of childhood."

Known as the Brevard-Clapp house, it is an amaglam of Greek Revival and Italianate styles. In front, eight fluted columns in Ionic, Doric and Corinthian styles grace the double porches. Cast-iron "lace" fences, set with intricate rose patterns, line the porches and yard. Designed by James Calrow and build by Charles Price in 1857, the violet-gray antebellum mansion is surrounded by lush gardens and huge, buttress-rooted live oak trees.

Inside, the ceilings soar to fourteen feet overhead and are decorated with ornate medallions and crown moldings. The largest room on the first floor is a double parlour, with floor-to-ceiling windows that open onto a side porch. There is also a library and a huge dining room with murals running around three walls. In the front hallway, a twenty-seven-step staircase leads to several bedrooms, and another staircase goes to two rooms on a third floor. Toward the back of the house are smaller bedrooms and a servants' staircase that winds down to the large eat-in kitchen, which overlooks the pool and cabana. Two guest houses also share the property.

Rice was thrilled with this house, and although she had initially imagined the setting for WH in a house one block away, quickly rewrote the early chapters so that she could utilise the grace and atmosphere of her new home. In her imagination she dirtied it up a bit: the tall shutters were broken and the fences covered with rust; the swimming pool turned into a brackish, murky pond. As she created scenes of revelry, renovation, confrontation and tragedy in her novels, she physically went from room to room to experience each scene as if it was really happening. Thus she transcribed the details of Lasher's seduction of Rowan, Michael's psychometric rampage, and Carlotta's eerie tour through observation and imagination onto paper.

A house symbolises cosmic order and the habitation of the soul. The facade represents external appearances, while various rooms offer specific symbolic significance. For example, the attic often signifies the mind, the basement the subconcious, and the kitchen a place of transformation. This seems to be the case at First Street, as the house's changing appearances correspond to the personalities of the witches who reside there, and thus to the moods of the inhabiting spirit Lasher. Much of the action happens on the third floor, in the attic rooms; most of the knowledge of the house's history comes from these same rooms; and when Lasher first meets Rowan in the kitchen, it begins an affair that transforms Rowan's life beyond what she could have imagined.

According to the account of this house provided in WH, Mayfair siblings Katherine, Julien and Remy buy the property and hire architect Darcy Monahan to design and oversee its building. Katherine and Darcy work together on the design, but Lasher later claims he put the thoughts into Katherine's head because he could forsee that this house would be the place where he would "come through" into the material world. Julien views it as a "deep secretive house, full of graceful designs yet somehow ominous." In 1858 Darcy marries Katherine and they live in the house, but Remy's family takes up principle residence after Darcy's death. Julien keeps an office in the house, then later joins Remy's family there with his wife, Suzette.

The house becomes a central factor in the Mayfair experience. The most powerful witches in the family live there, with the legacy heir always occupying the north wing bedroom above the library. The witch who inherits the family fortune receives the house, along with Lasher. Mary Beth refurbishes the place in 1900 and uses it for family reunions, while the 1920's sees Stella Mayfair bringing the house to life with lavish parties. When Stella's brother Lionel shoots her dead in 1929, the house deteriorates, as if in mourning for the loss of her gay spirit.

In 1941, Stella's daughter Antha asks Cortland to establish a trust for its restoration. The family hires men to attempt repairs, but due to unexplained mischief, no one is able to complete a job. People whisper that some supernatural power prevents the Mayfairs from making the house once again a magnificent place. With its damp, dark, weedy, and unkempt appearance, it seems to exude an aura of evil and people walk across the street to avoid it. Even Aaron Lightner perceives an evil presence surrounding it.

Only when Rowan, the most powerful Mayfair witch since Mary Beth, inherits the house does its renovation, as organised by Michael Curry, become successful. This is a metaphor of a greater plan into which she has entered; Lasher is also waiting specifically for her. When Gerald Mayfair warns her that the house is not what it seems - "It's made up of all sorts of patterns. And the patterns form a sort of trap" - his words link the house to Lasher, who also weaves many intricate patterns that will trap many of the Mayfairs.

The Keyhole Doorway
~ Emma Barnard ©2000

One feature of the mansion that plays a significant role is the Egyptian keyhole doorway. It is an unusual architectual feature, and through it the spirit Lasher intends to one day enter the world, by being born into the flesh. Until that time, however, Lasher beomes the ghost of First Street, know simply as "the man." Julien, who understands the door's significance and who has become a central player in the Mayfair pact with Lasher, always has his portraits painted with the door as a background.

Lasher is indeed born at First Street by the door, as he has planned, and although he leaves with Rowan to go to Donnelaith, he wants to return, to live in the house as a man. Later he does return, first in search of Mayfair women for coupling, and then to see Rowan on her deathbed and tell Michael his story. It is also where he is killed, and he is buried beneath Deirdre's Oak in the backyard.

The Taltos Emaleth comes to First Street in search of Michael Curry. Her arrival saves Rowan, because her milk heals Rowan's injuries. Rowan then kills her daughter out of fear of what she is. Emaleth's corpse joins Lasher's beneath Deirdre's Oak.

Yet one more Taltos comes to First Street, to claim it as part of her inheritance. She is Morrigan, born to Mona, the legacy designee, and thus next in line to inherit everything. However, when she sees Ashlar she leaves with him.

The true ghost of First Street is Julien Mayfair. Having become increasingly disturbed by Lasher's plan, he remains earthbound, haunting the place in an effort to block Lasher from achieving his evil goals. Although Julien cannot prevent Lasher from coming through, he appears to Michael Curry, urging him to try and kill Lasher.

The Witches Companion ~ Katherine Ramsland