New Orleans, Orleans Parish story
Anne Rice's Garden District and the Mayfair Witches
Anne Rice used her own home at 1239 First Street as the inspiration for the Mayfair Witches' ancestral home in her gothic novels.
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The queen of vampire fiction made her own First Street mansion the haunted heart of the Mayfair witches. Anne Rice bought the house at 1239 First Street in 1989, and for fifteen years, she lived within its walls until 2004. To her readers, this isn't just a historic home built in 1857 by James Calrow; it's the inspiration for the ancestral home in The Witching Hour, Taltos, and Lasher.
Rice wove the Garden District's atmospheric mansions and the nearby historic Lafayette Cemetery Number One into a gothic tapestry of family secrets and supernatural power. While the real house is a grand architectural gem, in the Rice universe, it's the place where the Mayfair lineage converges. As you walk these streets, imagine the shadows of the Garden District and the ghosts of the Mayfair family lingering just beyond the porch.
Updated June 2026