The historic Claiborne Mansion, which overlooks Washington Square Park in the Marigny, is up for sale with a $3.5 million pricetag.
The two-story townhouse was built in 1859 for W. C. C. Claiborne II, the son of Louisiana’s first American governor.
For the past three decades, it was operated as a bed and breakfast by Cleo Pelleteri, who passed away last year at 83. Pelleteri kept or restored many of the historic details inside the house, including the wrought iron balconies, pocket doors and windows, vaulted ceilings, cornices and wide plank wood floors.
Claiborne Mansion in Faubourg Marigny bedroom detail.
The mansion was designed primarily in the Greek Revival style, with French colonial elements, by architect James Stewart. There are 10 bedrooms and eight-and-a-half bathrooms along with an outdoor 40-foot salt water pool and deck area.
The property sits on Dauphine Street between Frenchman Street and Esplanade Avenue, just a couple blocks from the upriver end of the French Quarter.
Pelleteri’s daughter, Laura Amann, said maintaining the 7,400-square-foot compound and running it as an upmarket hostelry had been a labor of love for her mother since she bought it in 1993.
The mansions stayed in the hands of Claiborne’s descendants until 1919. It had three owners over the next 70 years, all of whom had sought to maintain the property’s historical character, Amann said.
And then Pelleteri, who lived in the Marigny and enjoyed strolling through the neighborhood, came across the mansion.
“My mom was exploring the neighborhood and peeked over the gate,” she recalled. “She was intrigued enough that she soon bought it.”
Claiborne Mansion, bedroom detail.
Pelleteri was from a prominent New Orleans horse racing family who played an important role in the modern history of the Fair Grounds Race Course.
Her father, Anthony Pelleteri, partnered with Sylvester Labrot, John Letellier and William Helis to save the track from being auctioned off in 1941 and served as its executive vice president until his death in 1952. After that, the track was run by his wife, Thelma Pelleteri, and Letellier, her brother.
The Pelleteri and Letellier families owned the largest minority block of Fair Grounds stock from the early 1940s until the late 1970s.
Cleo Pelleteri was married to lawyer John Cummings, owner of the Whitney Plantation, until the early 1980s and was survived by four children: Sean Cummings, Michelle Cummings, Elise Greenberg as well as Amann.
A view of the pool area at the Claiborne Mansion at Washington Square in Faubourg Marigny.
Pelleteri was responsible for other New Orleans-area businesses, in addition to the bed and breakfast. In the 1980s she opened the Bayou Ridge Café on Metairie Road, which introduced New Orleans to Chef Kevin Vizard, and later moved it to the Marigny. She also ran the Bookstop book store, which was one of the city’s fixtures for literary events until she gave up both it and the restaurant to concentrate on the bed and breakfast.
The children are selling the mansion and Amann said their hope is they will find a buyer who will have the same commitment to keep the house faithful to its historic roots, whether it is run as a hotel or arts space or converted back to a family residence.
Parke McEnery is the real estate agent.
“Everyone who has owned this house has felt they were stewards of it, as my mom did,” Amann said.