Longue Vue House and Gardens

Overview
Longue Vue, a National Historic Landmark and masterful integration of house and gardens in New Orleans, was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in late August 2005. It destroyed the electrical and irrigation systems, uprooted major trees, and placed most parts of the garden under water. The Garden Conservancy sent a team of volunteers to assist in the clean up, funded a landscape renewal plan, and placed a Marco Polo Stufano Fellow in residence in 2008 to implement initial phases of the restoration and reclaim the original design brilliance of landscape architect Ellen Biddle Shipman. Today, visitors to Longue Vue are once again able to participate in special events and education programs and enjoy the beauty of the garden.
www.longuevue.com

News and Background

Download a PDF of The Magazine Antiques' Summer 2010 feature article on the restoration of Longue Vue Garden.

Read a May 2011 interview with Joe Baker, former executive director, and Chip Leyens, vice president of the board

Milestones

1935: Edgar and Edith Stern begin the construction of Longue Vue, one of the last great houses of the American Architectural Renaissance. Encompassing eight acres, the house and gardens reflect the collaborative artistic and design vision of the Sterns, architects William and Geoffrey Platt, and landscape designer Ellen Biddle Shipman, who was called “the dean of American women in landscape architecture” by House & Garden magazine in 1934. The house and gardens are completed seven years later.

1990: Longue Vue embarks on 12 years of significant garden and infrastructure restoration to ensure the health and historic authenticity of its gardens.

2005: In April, Longue Vue is designated a National Historic Landmark

In August, Hurricane Katrina causes extensive damage, flooding the formal gardens, destroying hundreds of trees and nearly two-thirds of the plantings, as well as the electrical and irrigation systems

2006: The Garden Conservancy sends in a volunteer team of horticultural experts to assist with the garden clean-up and restoration. The gardeners turn over a cover crop in the parterres, remove dead shrubs, prepare the site for replanting, and work in the east lawn, Discovery Garden, entry court, and a shrub border along the oak allee. The Conservancy recognizes that Hurricane Katrina presented Longue Vue with the opportunity to not only restore the garden to its pre-hurricane appearance, but to recapture the original Shipman design intent, which had been destroyed not only by nature, but also by human intervention over the past several decades, and Longue Vue becomes a preservation project of the Garden Conservancy

2007: Following the clean-up effort, the Garden Conservancy raises significant funds to support the initial landscape assessment, planning phase, and the final Historic Landscape Renewal (“HLR”) Manual in partnership with Heritage Landscapes. The HLR is a long-term, holistic, phased approach to restore the original Ellen Biddle Shipman landscape design intent

2008: Paul Cady, a Garden Conservancy Marco Polo Stufano Fellow, researches, plans, and begins restoration of five garden areas, demonstrating that the garden is capable of attaining its former luster

2009: Vermont Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects presents Excellence award to Heritage Landscapes for Longue Vue House & Gardens Renewal Plan

2012: Gardens move beyond restoration into refinement stage

2014: Gift shop is relocated back to its original space and the Whim House is restored to its original purpose as a guest house.

Visit

Longue Vue House and Gardens is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. The last house tour starts at 4 p.m.

For more information about visiting Longue Vue, visit the Longue Vue website.