The David Olivier House was built ca. 1820 on Chartres between Mazant and France Streets. The property was purchased in 1840 by the Catholic Orphans Association of New Orleans and subsequently operated as the St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum. The boy orphans later were moved to what became Holy Cross College (located prior to Hurricane Katrina just across the Industrial Canal). Still later the girls relocated to what became the Academy of the Holy Angels on North Rampart Street (that school closed its doors in 1992). For many years the property lay more or less vacant and unused. The photograph shows the Olivier House along with later additions (said to have been designed by the architect Henry Howard) during the Asylum’s 1949 demolition. Citizen efforts to save the historic structure ultimately failed, but the Louisiana Landmarks Society came into being as a result of those efforts. The site remains vacant.

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