Tara — Gone with the Wind House
New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana
Marker Inscription
Tara. Erected in 1941 for businessman George J. Palmer (1897-1977) and his wife Juliette Wehrmann Palmer (1907-1980), who modeled their family home after the fictitious O'Hara residence in the 1939 film "Gone with the Wind". Andrew M. Lockett, Jr. was the architect. Cornelius Hurst developed this area as Hurstville in 1832. It was the first of the uptown faubourgs. In 1894 the William J. O'Donnell residence was built on this site after designs by Southron R. Duval. Jackson Brewing Company president Lawrence Fabacher later acquired the property and added a casino, greenhouses & a stable. These structures were demolished in 1940. This plaque was placed in 2015 by the Palmer children: George Jr., Jared, Richard, Robert, Vernon, Juliette and Walter, and the owner, Marilyn Springer Martin.
Erected by Orleans Parish Landmarks Commission
The Story
This uptown corner sits in Hurstville, laid out by Cornelius Hurst in 1832 as the first of New Orleans' uptown faubourgs, or suburbs, as the young American city pushed upriver from its Creole core. In 1941 businessman George J. Palmer and his wife Juliette built their family home here as a loving replica of Tara, the plantation house from the 1939 film "Gone with the Wind" — a striking example of how a Hollywood image of the Old South shaped real Southern architecture. The site had already seen an 1894 residence and, later, a colorful chapter under Jackson Brewing Company president Lawrence Fabacher, who added a casino, greenhouses, and a stable before it was all cleared in 1940.
Why it matters
Tara captures a distinctly American phenomenon: a movie's romanticized vision of the antebellum South becoming brick-and-mortar reality, layered atop the real story of how New Orleans grew through its 19th-century faubourgs.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
This uptown corner of New Orleans holds several eras stacked on top of one another. The oldest layer belongs to 1832, when Cornelius Hurst developed the area as Hurstville — the first of the city's uptown faubourgs. As the young American city grew, it pushed upriver from its older Creole core, and these faubourgs, or suburbs, were where that expansion took shape. To stand here is to stand at the leading edge of nineteenth-century New Orleans.
A later layer arrived in 1894, when a residence was built on this very site, designed for William J. O'Donnell. In time the property passed to Lawrence Fabacher, president of the Jackson Brewing Company, who gave it a distinctly turn-of-the-century flourish — adding a casino, greenhouses, and a stable. Those structures were cleared away in 1940, closing that chapter of the corner's life.
Then comes the layer most people notice first. In 1941, on ground swept clean of what came before, a new house rose — and it was built to look like something out of the movies.
People & events
The house was built for the businessman George J. Palmer and his wife, Juliette Wehrmann Palmer. What they chose to build is the marker's most charming detail: they modeled their family home on the fictitious O'Hara residence from the 1939 film "Gone with the Wind." The architect Andrew M. Lockett, Jr. gave that Hollywood image real walls and a real roof, on a real New Orleans street. They named it Tara.
Beneath the Palmers' story runs the deeper history the marker carefully records. Cornelius Hurst, who laid out this ground in 1832. William J. O'Donnell, whose 1894 residence stood here, designed by Southron R. Duval. Lawrence Fabacher, the brewery president whose casino and greenhouses and stable once occupied the site. Each name is a chapter, and the corner has quietly held them all.
The marker itself has a human story. It was placed in 2015 by the Palmer children — George Jr., Jared, Richard, Robert, Vernon, Juliette, and Walter — together with the later owner, Marilyn Springer Martin. It is, in the end, a family remembering the home they grew up in, and inviting the neighborhood to remember it too.
Its place in the American story
Tara captures something distinctly American: a movie's romanticized vision of the antebellum South becoming brick-and-mortar reality. The plantation house at the heart of "Gone with the Wind" never existed except on film, yet its image was so powerful that a New Orleans family chose to live inside a version of it. That is a striking illustration of how popular culture can shape not just how we imagine the past, but the physical landscape we build in the present.
It is worth remembering what that Hollywood image glossed over. The film's romantic "Old South" was a myth laid over the hard realities of slavery and the plantation economy, and a house built to echo it inherits that complicated resonance. Part of what makes this site interesting is precisely that tension — a beloved family home that is also an artifact of how a nation chose to picture, and prettify, its own history.
Layered beneath all of that is the more grounded American story of how a city grows. The faubourgs of New Orleans were the mechanism of that growth, and this corner has been continuously reinvented — farmland to suburb, one grand house to another — for nearly two centuries.
If you visit
Come knowing you are looking at a private family home, and enjoy it from the public sidewalk with that respect in mind. The pleasure here is in recognition: the columned, white-fronted silhouette that so many people carry in their heads from a single famous film, standing on an ordinary uptown street rather than a movie backlot.
Let the marker do its work of peeling back the layers. Read past the house you can see to the ones you can't — the 1894 residence, the brewery president's vanished casino and greenhouses, the 1832 origins of Hurstville itself. Few corners in the city wear their history quite so densely, and the plaque is a small map of it.
This fits naturally into a walk through uptown New Orleans, a part of the city defined by these nineteenth-century faubourgs and their leafy, architecturally rich streets. Pause here, take in the Hollywood-made facade, and then keep walking — you'll be moving through the very expansion this ground helped begin.
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
- · George J. Palmer
- · Juliette Wehrmann Palmer
- · Andrew M. Lockett, Jr.
- · Cornelius Hurst
- · William J. O'Donnell
- · Southron R. Duval
- · Lawrence Fabacher
Themes & tags
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