JOSEPH V. SCHLOSSER HOUSE 1240 Sixth Street

After undergoing varied and not always felicitous usages during its long history, this handsome double galleried frame house is once again what it was originally, a fine private dwelling.

Estimated by Koch and Wilson, architects for the restoration, to have been built between 1866 and 1868, the house for many years was the Music School of the original Sophie Newcomb High School and College. The school’s main campus was in the square directly across the street, as described earlier in this book. When Newcomb relocated, the property was acquired by the Baptist Bible Institute, which divided the huge rooms of the dwelling into six apartments, all with individual baths and kitchens.

After Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Schlosser purchased the house in 1953, many months of planning preceded the restoration. In addition to removing the apartment arrangements, the Schlossers had the house completely rock-lathed, replastered, repainted, replumbed, re-wired and insulated. From 11 to 15 coats of paint were removed from the original woodwork.

The entrance door and the stair railing are solid mahogany. The pair of black and gold Austrian marble mantels in the living room and library came from Uncle Sam plantation. This sugar plantation, owned by Pierre Auguste Samuel Fagot, had been one of the most magnificent in Louisiana. In the dining room the marble mantel came from a house, now destroyed, designed by the celebrated architect Henry Howard.

The Schlosser’s have furnished their home with antiques and a notable collection of paintings by Ellsworth and William Woodward. William Woodward, a native of New Hampshire, was the first professor of Art and Architecture at Tulane and his brother Ellsworth founded the Art School of Newcomb College.

60