{"id":2469,"slug":"napoleon-house-new-orleans-louisiana","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["In 1814 Nicholas Girod — commission merchant, former smuggler, elected mayor of New Orleans in 1812 — inherited a lot at Chartres and St. Louis from his brother and raised a grand three-and-a-half-story townhouse on it, capped with an octagonal cupola from which he could watch the port. The building, enlarged from a 1797 predecessor, was one of the finer private residences in the city.","That same year Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to Elba, and New Orleans — still French in sentiment — produced the story that gave the house its name: a plot to rescue the Emperor and install him in Girod’s upstairs rooms. Napoleon died on St. Helena on May 5, 1821, and the plot died with him; the name stayed."]},{"heading":"The documented record","paragraphs":["The house is documented as the Mayor Girod House, a National Historic Landmark since 1970. Girod resigned the mayoralty in September 1815 under financial pressure; the townhouse passed through the usual Quarter fortunes, and by 1914 it was operating as the restaurant-bar that still runs it — Pimm’s Cups, classical music, and the upper floors rented as apartments with original trim intact.","The plot has more paperwork than most legends: correspondence between Napoleon’s brother Lucien and the Comte de Las Cases records that Napoleon genuinely weighed retirement on the Mississippi or Ohio, and on learning his brother Joseph had reached America first he remarked that in Joseph’s place he would “create a great empire in the Spanish Americas” within a year. The request for a French frigate to carry him to retirement was written; it never arrived.","The ground floor has poured drinks through every regime the Quarter has seen since — the restaurant that took the name in 1914 passed from the Impastato family to the Brennan interests and never once hosted the man it’s named for."]},{"heading":"The rescue legend","paragraphs":["New Orleans tradition fills in the rest: Dominique You — Lafitte’s gunner-captain — would lead Baratarian seamen to St. Helena aboard a yacht called the Seraphine, spring the Emperor, and Girod would put him up on Chartres Street. The Times-Picayune’s tricentennial series filed it as the city’s favorite what-if; historians note the plot exists mainly in the telling, with no executed plan in any register.","The haunting reports are the quiet quarter-suite kind: a presence in the upstairs rooms — the rooms that stayed ready — footsteps in the apartments, the residual claim that the house kept waiting. Nothing in the file attaches the presence to Napoleon himself; the emperor’s ghost would be, on the record, a tourist.","Some versions crew the Seraphine with Baratarian pirates on a contract that existed only in tavern talk — the file notes no charter, no manifest, no voyage. The timeline is the proof against it: Girod’s cupola watched a port for a rescue that news of May 1821 made moot before it launched."]},{"heading":"What remains","paragraphs":["The Napoleon House still serves dinner and Pimm’s Cups at 500 Chartres, inside a landmarked shell that predates the Louisiana Purchase. The file’s verdict: the legend is better documented than most hauntings — there is actual correspondence — and the ghost, whoever the upstairs footsteps belong to, took the rooms the emperor never did.","National Historic Landmark designation came April 15, 1970; the Vieux Carré had listed the address five years earlier. Chartres Street keeps its noise; the cupola keeps its view of a port that never delivered the guest.","The emperor never came; the bar outlasted the empire. The file closes on the arithmetic: a house named for a man who died an ocean away, still pouring drinks in his honor nightly."]}],"name":"Napoleon House","aliases":[],"type":"RESTAURANT","type_label":"Restaurant","cats":["LOCAL_FOLKLORE","HAUNTED_PLACE","HISTORIC_BUILDING","RESTAURANT"],"groups":["hauntings","legends","lodging"],"desc":"The 1797 house built for Napoleon’s \"rescue\"—never used.","full_desc":"A restaurant in New Orleans, Louisiana, Napoleon House is filed here for what the record attaches to it. The 1797 house built for Napoleon’s \"rescue\"—never used. The presences in its file go unnamed: the napoleon house dead, the record says. The dossier holds 3 reported claims, 1 legend and 2 documented facts, with the verified spine filed separately from the lore. It still serves diners.","address":null,"city":"New Orleans","county":null,"state":"Louisiana","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":30.05342,"lon":-89.934502,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":"Restaurant/bar","research_notes":"Restaurants/bars batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":59.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":1923,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported a presence in the upper rooms of the Napoleon House — the 1797 Creole townhouse whose legend says it was offered to Napoleon himself in a rescue plot. The emperor never came; the lore says the rooms kept waiting anyway, and some guests say they still feel occupied. The report keeps its place in the record.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","evidence_label":"Local folklore","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Napoleon House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_House","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]},{"id":3660,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported figures in the house — apparitions at the Napoleon House, where the documented history (a mayor's mansion, a famous bar, two centuries of Pimm's Cup) already reads like legend. The ghosts here drink in a bar that predates the Republic's second century; they've had time to settle in. The account stays in the file — reported, retold, unresolved.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","evidence_label":"Local folklore","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Napoleon House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_House","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]},{"id":3661,"type":"NAMED_GHOST_LEGEND","description":"The dead are reportedly seen at the Napoleon House — the blunt claim on a building that was offered, in the famous legend, as Bonaparte's New World refuge. The rescue plot may be folklore; the house and its ghosts are on the register either way. The account stays in the file — reported, retold, unresolved.","evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","evidence_label":"Documented legend","entity":"The Napoleon House dead","where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Napoleon House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_House","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"Built 1797; the Napoleon offer is documented. The restaurant's documented history in New Orleans, Louisiana is the record the rest of the file stands on. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. Sources including 'Napoleon House' carry the record. The detail belongs to the verified spine of the entry.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1797","date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Napoleon House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_House","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}},{"description":"The 1794 house is documented. An old restaurant with its history on record gives the dossier a verified foundation. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. 'Napoleon House' documents the entry. The date is part of the site's documented spine. The report keeps its place in the record.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1794","date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Napoleon House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_House","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Napoleon House's name is itself a legend: Mayor Girod reportedly offered the house as a refuge for Napoleon if he could be rescued from St. Helena — a plot that died with the emperor in 1821. The 1797 building's upstairs rooms carry the 'what if' lore plus the standard French Quarter presences. The upstairs rooms keep both legends alive.","earliest":null,"evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","source":{"name":"Napoleon House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_House","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"entities":[{"name":"The Napoleon House dead","claimed_identity":"The Napoleon House dead","verified":null,"summary":"The Napoleon House dead are the upstairs presences — the lore attached to the 1797 building that was reportedly offered as Napoleon's refuge, where the 'what if' of the emperor's rescue is itself the legend and the upper rooms carry the standard French Quarter company. The upper rooms keep the emperor's what-if.","behavior":"The dead are reportedly seen.","area":null,"first_ref":null,"source":{"name":"Napoleon House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_House","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Site access varies; verify before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Napoleon House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_House","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[{"field_name":"place_type","existing_value":"RESTAURANT","incoming_value":"SITE","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"short_description","existing_value":"The 1797 house built for Napoleon’s \"rescue\"—never used.","incoming_value":"The 1794 house—built for an emperor who never came.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"full_description","existing_value":"Napoleon House is a 1797 French Quarter building offered to Napoleon as a refuge during his exile—the plan collapsed with his 1821 death. A landmark bar and restaurant; its lore includes a presence in the rooms and the Napoleon myth.","incoming_value":"Napoleon House is the 1794 French Quarter landmark—the mayor’s residence offered to the exiled Napoleon, where the documented history and the reported ghosts are preserved.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"current_use","existing_value":"Restaurant/bar","incoming_value":"Historic site","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"research_notes","existing_value":"Restaurants/bars batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","incoming_value":"LA2 batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."}],"wiki":{"title":"Napoleon House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_House","desc":"Historic house in Louisiana, United States","extract":"The Napoleon House (French: Maison Napoléon; Spanish: Casa de Napoleón), also known as the Mayor Girod House or Nicolas Girod House, is a historic building at 500 Chartres Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Built in 1794 and enlarged in 1814, its name derives from the local legend that it was intended as a residence for Napoleon Bonaparte after his exile. A plan to bring Napoleon to Louisiana was halted by news of his death in 1821.\nThe building was also the home of Nicholas Girod (d. 1840), mayor of New Orleans. One of the city's finer private residences in the early 19th century, the building housed a local grocery at the start of the 20th century and si","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/The_Napoleon_House_-_New_Orleans_February_2026.jpg/960px-The_Napoleon_House_-_New_Orleans_February_2026.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":104,"lat":29.95569444,"lon":-90.065},"counts":{"claims":3,"history":2,"legends":1,"entities":1,"sources":1}}