I didn’t go to the Beauregard-Keyes House looking for vampires, but they found me there anyway. I wanted to see the house because I love old architecture and Francis Parkinson Keyes, the last owner, was an avid traveler and the author of 50 books, two I’ve read and liked, including the popular “Dinner at Antoine’s.” I didn’t even know about the vampires, but that would have sealed the deal.

The house, a National Historic Landmark built in 1826 and restored Keyes in the late 1940s, is a raised Creole Cottage. It is the only home of its type available to tour and it’s the biggest in the French Quarter. It’s also the oldest structure in the French Quarter and maybe the region, aside from the Ursuline convent across the street. It’s also unique for its vast garden in an area where houses are stacked next to each other like condos and gardens are rare.

Inside the Beauregard-Keyes House

I’d been traveling in the south for several months and had gone to many old southern homes. Darn near everyone I’ve passed that has allowed it anyway. I’m always surprised by their contrasts: grandeur and simplicity, not to mention the utter lack of bathrooms or kitchens. I don’t care how much-gilded crown molding you had if you used an outhouse, it’s just not worth it.

The Beauregard-Keyes House is divided into two halves, with the living quarters on one side and the entertaining quarters on the other. In the back, there is a long, enclosed porch that goes across the width of the house. Double pocket doors lead from room to room and can be closed or open to catch the breeze through the house in line with the many floor-to-ceiling windows. Each room had a fireplace, wood floors, rich area rugs and lovely plasterwork. The entertaining spaces were more ornate than the bedrooms. There were no closets but large pieces of beautiful furniture for storing clothes and linens.

Much of the beauty of this house is in the many tiny details that the guide pointed out such as the flower carvings in the doors, the plaster medallions in the ceiling, and the marble details in the fireplaces. I loved the old mirrors and made a point to look inside each one. I have a theory that part of our essence, or spirit, is caught in a mirror when we look in it many times.

The writer’s room

In the back of the house is a large courtyard with a fountain and a series of outbuildings, one containing Keyes’s offices where she wrote many – of her 50 books. That’s prolific, but it’s not like she had a blog to spend her creative energy on. Imagine how many books I could have written by now!

Her workspace included bookshelves and her desk with an old writing materials and a typewriter. Ah, nothing thrills me more than the writing rooms of other people, especially since the idea of sitting in one place all the time is so novel to me anymore. I always hold my computer in my lap and my location changes almost daily (as a nomad, so does my state). Even so, sitting at a table or desk is as appealing to me as really tight pants. But I’m glad that other people do it so I can look at their desks.

Anne Rice fans

As I was looking at the books, I mentioned that I’m an avid reader and I first came to New Orleans because of Anne Rice. This was when the guide decided to drop her bombshell. The house had been closed in the days before my visit. Now, she said it was because it was used as a location for filming the “Interview with the Vampire” TV series. The show is based on the book (and later movie starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt) by Anne Rice.

I’ve run into this crew all over town! This was the third filming location I’d accidentally stumbled upon since I’d been in town. The others were an old bar on Royal Street – amusingly across the street from the Vampire Café – and the other was a big white house on St. Charles Ave. in the Garden District.

Interview with a Vampire was my first Anne Rice book. Since then I’ve read nearly everything she’s written – nearly 40. Though I don’t watch TV I was excited to see so many sites of the filming.

A secret room vampires won’t love

We were at the end of the tour, and I could only speculate what scenes they had shot here. I lamented that I didn’t pay better attention. I suspected this was the interior of their French Quarter home. The courtyard and garden would fit too. Then there was the next room I was about to learn about, which was a real prize.

“Well, if you’re an Anne Rice fan, you’ll like this last room,” she said.

I followed her to a room totally enclosed with an interior window, a door, and a skylight at the top. The entire small room was covered in light tile with religious symbols. It was bizarre, creepy and nonsensical. Like something, a vampire would have for incinerating other vampires to death. There’s no other functional purpose.

I thought it was a left-over set prop, but she said, no, it was original to the house. It was like the room in where a certain “young” vampire was burned alive (no spoilers, but it’s near the end of the book). So that’s intriguing.

Perhaps Anne had been here before and saw this room before writing the scene? The house opened as a museum in 1970 and she published Interview in 1976, so it’s possible. Sorry to be obscure – if you’ve read the books, you know. If not, watch the show, and if not, it’s still a lovely house to tour. Money they earn goes toward preservation and upkeep.

You can visit for just $10. Find the Beauregard-Keyes House at 1113 Chartres Street, New Orleans.

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