Sultan's Palace (Gardette-LePretre House)
This Greek Revival mansion with its distinctive cast-iron filigree balconies was completed around 1836 for Philadelphia dentist Joseph Coulon Gardette and purchased in 1839 by planter Jean Baptiste LePretre. Local legend, popularized by Helen Pitkin Schertz's 1922 book Legends of Louisiana, tells of a man claiming to be a sultan's brother who rented the house and filled it with stolen treasure and a veiled harem, until assassins stole in one night and slaughtered every occupant, leaving the host buried alive in the garden. For more than a century, residents and visitors have reported muffled screams, phantom oriental music, and shadowy figures drifting through the rooms. Historians note the tale is almost certainly fabricated, since the house did not exist when the massacre is supposed to have occurred, yet the building's reputation as one of the French Quarter's most haunted addresses has only deepened with time.
📍 716 Dauphine Street, French Quarter, New Orleans, LA 70116, New Orleans, LA · Get directions