Longue Vue House (New Orleans Town Gardeners)

Longue Vue House and Gardens is a non-profit historic museum and an educational resource for New Orleans students and residents. Thanks to the importance of our landscape design – an intact masterwork of 20th-century landscape architect and female design pioneer Ellen Biddle Shipman – Longue Vue was granted National Historic Landmark status in 2005.

On August 29, 2021, Hurricane Ida struck a tremendous blow to South Louisiana, including New Orleans and the Longue Vue property. Ida carried sustained winds over 150 MPH and hovered near New Orleans for several hours. The winds created enormous strain on Longue Vue’s living collections, causing downing trees, major limb loss, uprooted shrubs, flattened flower gardens, and a thick layer of debris across the site. Over 1,000,000 customers in southern Louisiana lost power; Longue Vue lost power on the evening of Sunday, August 29, disabling irrigation systems, and had power restored only on Sunday. In the course of the storm, Longue Vue lost three significant large pine and magnolia trees, 10 important native trees, and an undetermined quantity shrubs and other plantings. Downed branches and other debris covered the property, and our historic Metropolitan greenhouse lost rare safety glass panes and took damage to wooden casings. 

The present proposal seeks support for the stabilization of our greenhouse, which is an important component of full-site recovery as well as on its own terms as a historic structure. The loss of the use of our greenhouse hinders both propagation that helps maintain Shipman’s original design and Longue Vue’s outreach and education programs, all of which are nature-based and feature plants themselves or seed science as a central focus.

The requested funding will enable us to resume safe use of the greenhouse in the short term. It is a crucial element in restarting our educational and horticulture components so crucial to our mission while we make other needed repairs. It is also vital part of our volunteer and community outreach program. It all starts in the greenhouse: propagation, education, programs, volunteers, and tours.