This plantation home in the middle of the city of New Orleans had an interesting and distinguished history. According to the Friends of the Cabildo it dates back to about 1763 (rebuilt in 1832) when the Faubourg Saulet was created from a portion of the old Jesuit plantation. After the Saulet family sold it, the house served as the St. Simeon’s Select School and later as the parochial school for St. Theresa of Avila Parish. For a while after that the building housed St. Luke’s Private Sanitarium, a mental hospital. The house returned to the original family when Leona Saulet Soniat purchased it; she honored her late husband in 1924 by establishing the Leonce M. Sonial Memorial Mercy Hospital. When the new Mercy Hospital opened on South Jefferson Davis Parkway, the Annunciation Street facility was closed. The old Saulet home was demolished in 1959 and replaced by a Schwegmann’s Supermarket (more recently a Robert’s Fresh Market); the store has been vacant since Katrina.

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