Marie Laveau's House

Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo sits at 628 Bourbon, named for the Voodoo Queen who never lived inside. Visitors report a heavy altar.

Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo sells mojo bags, gris-gris, and Tarot readings to tourists at 628 Bourbon Street, and the shop is honest about something most visitors don't realize: the Voodoo Queen herself never set foot in it. The shop is named for her, not located where she lived. Her actual home stood blocks away at 1020 St. Ann Street, and a kitchen fire gutted the back of the house in May 2025, with only the rear damaged. The storefront moved to 628 Bourbon from its earlier 739 Bourbon location, which is why older guides still list the wrong address.

The shop is less a haunted building and more a shrine in commercial drag. You walk in, and the front room is stacked with skull candles, High John the Conqueror root, and Marie Laveau's face printed on candles, prayer cards, and T-shirts. Past the retail is an altar. Past the altar is a back room where practitioners do readings and spellwork. The staff don't oversell the ghost angle. They'll sell you a love spell, sure, but they mostly steer the conversation toward actual Louisiana Voodoo, which has more in common with Catholic syncretism than with horror movies.

The ghost story that does get told here is more atmosphere than evidence. Visitors describe sudden pressure around the altar, photos that come out strangely blurred, and the feeling of being watched by the painted portrait above the merchandise, a dark-eyed image of Laveau in a tignon that dominates the room. No bartenders sighting a figure on the stairs. No guests in Room 218. Just a vibe that sits heavier in this shop than it does two doors down.

Marie Laveau (1801-1881) was a free woman of color, a hairdresser, a Catholic, and the most documented Voodoo practitioner in New Orleans history. She held ceremonies at Bayou St. John and Congo Square, sold mojo to the rich and advice to everyone, and by her death had become a legend thick enough that, as most accounts credit it, her daughter Marie Laveau II took over the name and the practice. Her tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 used to draw so many visitors leaving Xs drawn in brick-dust that the Archdiocese banned the practice and restricted access to guided tours only.

So when people come to Bourbon Street looking for her, the shop is what they find. It's a cultural landmark more than a paranormal one, and it's clear about that if you ask. The readings in the back room are taken seriously by the people who give them. The altar is maintained. And if you believe that a place gets charged by the intention of everyone who walks through the door, this one has been pulling thousands of pilgrims a year since it opened, leaving their coins, their Xs, and their unanswered prayers at the base of a painted portrait of a woman who never lived inside.