Colonel Short's Villa
New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana
Marker Inscription
Colonel Short's Villa. Built in 1859 for Colonel Robert H. Short of Kentucky, commission merchant. Henry Howard, Architect. Robert Huyghe, Builder. In 1832 this property, which was part of the Livaudais Plantation was subdivided into city squares. September 1, 1863 the house was seized by the Federal forces occupying the city as property of an absent Rebel. In March 1864 the house briefly served as the executive mansion of the newly elected Federal governor of Louisiana, Michael Hahn. It then became the residence of Major General Nathaniel P. Banks, U.S. Commander, Department of the Gulf. On August 15, 1865, the house was returned to Colonel Short by the U.S. Government and he lived in it until his death in 1890. An addition was made in 1906 and the house was restored in 1950. The unusual cast iron Morning-Glory and cornstalk fence was furnished by the Philadelphia Foundry of Wood and Miltenberger.
Erected by Orleans Parish Landmarks Commission
The Story
Built in 1859 for the Kentucky commission merchant Robert H. Short and designed by noted architect Henry Howard, this New Orleans mansion is famous for its cast-iron cornstalk-and-morning-glory fence. During the Federal occupation the house was seized as Rebel property; in 1864 it briefly served as the residence of Louisiana's Union governor Michael Hahn and then of Major General Nathaniel P. Banks. It was returned to Short after the war, and he lived there until his death in 1890.
Why it matters
The villa captures both the opulence of antebellum New Orleans and the upheavals of Union occupation during the Civil War.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
This house went up in 1859, in the last golden season of antebellum New Orleans. The city was one of the busiest ports in the country, its wealth built on cotton, sugar, and the river trade that funneled the produce of half a continent past its docks. Commission merchants — middlemen who bought, sold, and shipped on others' behalf — could grow very rich, and they built homes to prove it.
The land itself had a history before the villa did. As the inscription notes, this property was once part of the Livaudais Plantation, subdivided in 1832 into city squares. That transformation of plantation into fashionable neighborhood was the story of uptown New Orleans in those years, as the growing city spread and grand residences rose on former farmland.
Within a few years, though, the world that produced this house would be turned upside down. Louisiana seceded, war came, and New Orleans — the South's largest city and greatest port — became a prize both sides understood.
People & events
The villa was built for Colonel Robert H. Short of Kentucky, a commission merchant, and designed by Henry Howard, one of the most sought-after architects of his era in Louisiana, with Robert Huyghe as builder. It was a house meant to announce its owner's success.
Then the war rewrote its story. New Orleans fell to Union forces in the spring of 1862, and the city spent the rest of the conflict under Federal occupation. On September 1, 1863, this house was seized by the occupying authorities as the property of an absent Rebel — its owner away, his home taken.
What happened next gave the villa a strange prominence. In March 1864 it briefly served as the executive mansion of Michael Hahn, the newly elected Federal governor of Louisiana, and then became the residence of Major General Nathaniel P. Banks, the U.S. commander of the Department of the Gulf. For a time, a merchant's private home stood at the center of Union power in occupied Louisiana. On August 15, 1865, with the war over, the house was returned to Colonel Short, who lived here until his death in 1890.
Its place in the American story
Few buildings capture the whiplash of the Civil War era as neatly as this one. In a span of only a few years it passed from private opulence, to confiscated enemy property, to the seat of a Union-backed state government, and finally back to its original owner. That arc mirrors the larger fate of the occupied South — seized, reordered under Federal authority, and then, in fits and starts, restored.
Michael Hahn's brief tenure here is a window onto a difficult, often overlooked chapter: the Union effort to reconstruct loyal state governments even while the war still raged. New Orleans, captured early, became a laboratory for that experiment, and this house was one of its addresses.
The villa is also celebrated for its craftsmanship, above all its remarkable cast-iron fence, made by the Philadelphia foundry of Wood and Miltenberger and worked into a pattern of morning glories and cornstalks. That ironwork ties the house to the broader story of American industry and design in the mid-nineteenth century.
If you visit
The first thing to look for is the fence. Its cast-iron cornstalks and blooming morning glories are extraordinary — a piece of nineteenth-century industrial artistry hiding in plain sight along the sidewalk. (There's a charming local legend about why a cornstalk motif was chosen; enjoy it as a story, but take it as legend, not documented fact.) Run your eye along the ironwork before you even look at the house.
Then step back and take in the villa itself, a showpiece of the era's residential architecture. Picture it in 1864, when a Union governor and then a Union general lived behind that ornamental fence, and the contrast between its genteel design and its wartime role comes alive.
This stop sits in the heart of historic uptown New Orleans, a district made for wandering on foot beneath the live oaks. Arrive by strolling the neighborhood rather than rushing, let the grand houses set the mood, and this one becomes a highlight rather than just another handsome facade.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Robert H. Short
- · Henry Howard
- · Michael Hahn
- · Nathaniel P. Banks
Related events
- · Federal occupation of New Orleans
Themes & tags
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