Above: Twenty shotgun houses in Mid-City, the Garden District, Freret, Uptown, and Central City.
New Orleans shotgun houses are single or double-family residences that can be concisely described as narrow, elongated boxes with pitched roofs. The houses are numerous in the city’s older neighborhoods, particularly those that had large working-class populations in the 19th century such as Irish Channel, Marigny, Bywater, Treme, and Mid-City. Though historically built for and occupied by working-class and poor inhabitants, shotgun houses have been sought after in some areas of the city by a variety of New Orleanians. New owners often modify the structures to fit their individual needs and tastes; for example, it is common today for new buyers to add hallways, which were not included in the original designs (hence the name, as a shotgun blast fired from the front door could pass unimpeded through the entire house). Though the shotgun house is modest in comparison to other traditional urban housing types, such as the New York City brownstone or the Charleston single house, many New Orleanians cherish it for both its cultural significance and adaptability.
Above: A plan to convert a 1-bedroom, 1-bath shotgun house into a 3-bedroom, 2-bath home.
