The elegant living room was once the carriage house itself, while the extension on the street end, which now serves as a small study, was used as harness room, it is believed. Together they form a room 20 by 34 feet.
Extending the width of the house in the rear is a 38-foot-long dining room and enclosed porch. Huge sheets of glass installed in the spaces between “iron lace” grillwork of a characteristic Garden District gallery permit sweeping views of the garden while preserving the traditional character of the dwelling.
The charming garden is a prize example of achieving maximum beauty in a more or less minimum space. In competition with gardens of much greater size, it won the New Orleans Garden Society Cup for three consecutive years, at which time the cup was permanently presented to the Terrys. Planned around a large swimming pool, it is skillfully laid out so as to give the impression of much greater size. Among the plantings are found azaleas, camellias, sasanquas, sweet olives, hibiscus, hydrangeas and spring bulbs. The view from the rear of the garden toward the house is particularly pleasing.
The late Dr. Terry was a tireless worker on behalf of the preservation of the Garden District. During his twenty-year tenure as President of the Garden District Property Owners Association, he helped launch an energetic program aimed at preserving and restoring the beauty of this section.
View across swimming pool toward back of Terry house shows how glass enclosed iron galleries, new wing blend house with traditional garden.
GEORGE G. WESTFELDT HOUSE
2340 Prytania Street
The simplicity and unpretentious charm of this ancient raised cottage set well back amid luxuriant vegetation bring to mind the pleasant rural character of the Faubourg Lafayette of the 1830’s. Strongly akin to the type of plantation architecture which developed in Louisiana, the house was built by a pioneer resident of the Garden District, Thomas Toby.
In 1817 Toby left Philadelphia and came to New Orleans where he introduced the use of long-tailed drays for hauling cotton bales. Soon he had the largest wheelwright and commission merchant business in the South. After the railway up Nayades Street made the new town of Lafayette so accessible a suburban paradise, he chose a beautiful lot, heavily wooded with fine oak trees, on the corner of First and Prytanée (now Prytania) Streets. In 1838 he erected the charming white cottage surrounded by a picket fence which became a point of reference when describing the area. From that day the house has been known as “Toby’s Corner”. Much of the lumber and supplies used in its construction was brought from Philadelphia on the ships of his father, Simeon Toby, who engaged in the East coast trade. Thomas Toby suffered severe financial reverses in helping to finance the Texas revolution and some years after his death in 1849, his widow sold the house.