LOUISE S. McGEHEE SCHOOL
2343 Prytania Street
The Main Building
Formerly one of the most lavish private homes in the Garden District, this mansion now serves as the main building of the Louise S. McGehee School, for almost half a century one of the outstanding private schools for girls in the South. Amid architectural surroundings which bespeak a bygone age of leisure, work and study now prevail as the students pursue their exacting college preparatory curriculum.
Designed in the splendid free Renaissance style by James Freret, the mansion was constructed in 1872 for Bradish Johnson, a young man of wealth and discrimination whose family fortune was based on sugar plantations. Its erection marked the second great period of affluence for the Garden District. According to tradition it was built at a cost of one hundred thousand dollars and its furnishings were as lavish as the house itself. Always beautifully maintained by the Johnsons and the Walter Denègre family, its later owners, the architectural features of the building have been carefully preserved by the school corporation. Of undiminished loveliness are the fluted Corinthian columns, lofty ceilings and elaborate moldings embellished with classical motifs. An outstanding feature of the building is the winding staircase which rises at the rear of the marble-floored entrance hall. This stairway of unsurpassed beauty has been frequently honored as a masterpiece of design and craftsmanship.
A curious fact about the building is that neither a marriage, a birth, nor a death has ever taken place within its walls. However, since its acquisition by McGehee school in 1929 it has been the scene of many scholastic triumphs. The school features an honor system and student self government, the first high school in the city to establish this type of government. Nearly all of the school’s graduates have gone to college and most of the alumnae are active in civic affairs.
Magnificent spiral staircase in marble-floored central hall of former Bradish Johnson mansion has mahogany railing, stained glass skylight. Johnson fortune was based on large sugar plantations. City house was showplace.
A stroll around the grounds on the First Street side gives a good view of the former servants’ wing, which extends to the rear, looking today much as it did when the house was new. The beautiful grounds are particularly lovely in the spring when myriads of azaleas are in bloom as well as the large wisteria vine which drapes the arch of the front gate. Aged and majestic are the many magnolia trees, the largest of which some years ago was declared by E. H. Sargent, then curator of the Arnold Arboretum, to be the most magnificent specimen of magnolia grandiflora in the United States.
Provision for fine private education for girls has long been a tradition in the Garden District. By a strange coincidence, three of the earlier schools were within the immediate neighborhood of what is now McGehee School, and one of these was on the very spot.