LaLaurie Mansion

One of the most notorious houses in America. Madame Delphine LaLaurie threw lavish parties here in the 1830s while hiding something terrible upstairs. Nicolas Cage owned it for a while. American Horror Story filmed here.

The LaLaurie Mansion stands at 1140 Royal Street in New Orleans' French Quarter, a neoclassical townhouse whose elegant facade conceals one of America's most horrifying histories. Behind these walls, Madame Delphine LaLaurie -- a wealthy socialite who hosted the city's most lavish parties -- committed unspeakable acts of torture against enslaved people, crimes that came to light in a fire that would shock the nation.

Madame LaLaurie moved into the mansion in 1832 with her third husband, Dr. Leonard Louis Nicolas LaLaurie. To New Orleans society, she appeared the picture of refinement and grace. But rumors of cruelty had followed her for years -- she'd been investigated for mistreatment of enslaved people as early as 1828 and had been forced to sell several of them following the inquiry. What her neighbors didn't know was that the worst horrors were yet to come.

On April 10, 1834, a fire broke out in the mansion's kitchen. The blaze had been deliberately set by a 70-year-old enslaved woman who was chained to the stove -- she preferred death to enduring another punishment. When first responders arrived and tried to enter the building, they were rejected by the LaLauries "in a gross and insulting manner," according to the New Orleans Bee.

What they found in the attic above the kitchen would haunt the city forever. A group of enslaved people had been imprisoned there, many gruesomely tortured -- bones broken, eyes gouged out, and worse. The victims were carried to the Cabildo, where they received medical treatment while nearly two thousand townspeople came to view the evidence of LaLaurie's depravity. That night, an outraged mob sacked the mansion. Madame LaLaurie escaped to France, where she died in Paris on December 7, 1842.

The mansion was rebuilt after 1838 by Pierre Trastour, assuming the appearance it bears today. But the trauma of what occurred within these walls has never faded. As the building changed hands over nearly two centuries, those who ventured inside have reported chilling encounters. Tortured shrieks and moans echo through empty rooms. The smell of burning flesh fills the air without any source. The sound of chains being dragged can be heard in the darkness.

Some visitors have seen actual figures: a large Black man in chains, a white woman with glaring, hostile eyes. The suffering of LaLaurie's victims seems imprinted on the very structure of the building, replaying itself for those sensitive enough to perceive it.

The mansion has attracted fascination from the famous and infamous alike. Actor Nicolas Cage briefly owned the property before losing it to foreclosure in 2009. The third season of American Horror Story drew directly from the mansion's history. Ghost tours pause outside its gates while guides recount the horrors within -- though the building remains a private residence, and no tours are permitted inside.

Historians debate how much of the LaLaurie legend has been embellished over time. Jeanne deLavigne's 1946 book "Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans" added increasingly gruesome details without citing sources. But the primary documents -- the newspaper accounts, the court records, the testimony of those who witnessed the attic's horrors -- establish beyond doubt that something terrible happened here.

For those who walk past 1140 Royal Street, the mansion presents a beautiful facade that belies its history. But at night, when the French Quarter grows quiet, some say you can still hear the screams of those who suffered within -- voices that have never stopped crying out for justice, nearly two centuries after the fire that revealed Delphine LaLaurie's true nature to the world.