Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches logo and title graphics courtesy
AMC/AMC+
Since the premiere of Mayfair Witches in January 2023, there has been some confusion and uncertainty about the house Anne
Rice used in the Lives of the Mayfair Witches novels and the house used in the AMC series as the Mayfair house. This page
discusses the house used in the AMC series.
To be clear, the house that is used as the ancestral New Orleans home of the legacy Mayfair Witches in the AMC series is NOT
the same home Anne Rice owned and lived in when she wrote The Witching Hour. The house used in the AMC series is another
house only blocks away on Prytania Street in the same neighborhood. The house is known as the Soria-Creel house and is the
subject of this page of the Parlor. This page is among those that are devoted to discussing the AMC series.
In Character~Season 2
Since this page, one of the newest in the Parlor, went up, many have visited it. I can certainly see why, though. The Soria-Creel
house is a beautiful house!
Since Season 1, I have periodically tried to find more information about the actual history of the Soria-Creel house. Homes
like this are not only historic; they are a part of the history of New Orleans and of the United States in general. There
isn't quite as much online about the house as there is the Brevard-Rice house. But what I have managed to find, I've tried
to make available by adding them to this page of the Parlor.
Below, the enormous images of the house from Season 1 filming by RisingCrescent on Instagram really show the details of the
house during filming. RisingCrescent has added some new images of the Soria-Creel house from filming Season 2. To see the
additional images by RisingCrescent, look her up on Instagram...
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In Character~Season 1
The image above can be opened to full size, 3024x4032. It is the Soria-Creel house made into the Mayfair house. I wanted to
provide the image at full size so you can get a closer look at details.
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The Scenery
The House
The Soria-Creel house on Prytania Street was built in 1875. It is mere blocks away from 1239 First Street. Although the Mayfair
Witches' home of the novels is built with Greek Revival architecture, it also features Italianate architecture, which the
Soria-Creel house also features.
This is the house that was used as the Mayfair house in Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches on AMC. If I understand correctly, it
was the exterior of the house, and its garden, that were used. It does look like the front hall of the house was also used.
If not, it was reproduced well on a soundstage.
Because it's a lot of fun to see these beautiful homes with so much history, I decided to go into more detail on those properties.
This is one of the reasons the house used as Mona Mayfair's house on Amelia Street has a page on the site.
You will find a link to that page of the Parlor at the bottom of this one.
Now, I am devoting a page on this site to the Soria-Creel house. Images are the easy part; I'm hoping to find more documentation
of its history, architectural details, and other details to help distinguish it from 1239 First Street. I hope to add more
information as I find it.
This page is no doubt going to remain in a constant state of construction, so please keep checking back!
Was 'Mayfair Witches' Filmed in Anne Rice's Hometown of New Orleans? Let's Investigate
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The Scenery
Gallery Of the Soria-Creel House
As I begin to research the history of the Soria Creel house, I typically see photos of its interior taken in the present day.
The ones you will see in the slideshow gallery below come from an online article about the house on NOLA.com that is linked
below.
What I hope to find are photos of the house taken over time, very much like the historic photos of 1239 First Street. In addition
to that, it would be great to be able to find more historical records that can tell us more about this beautiful home.
NOLA - Kitchen Is the Heart of a Garden District House
In the first image, a larger version of the image of the home as it looks when it is NOT a filming location, I noticed something.
The siding is actually painted a pale lemon yellow. 1239 First Street was given a paint job with a similar color at one point
as well.
Looking at these images, things begin to jump out that we no doubt recognize from images of other houses like this one. One
is the use of mirrors in double parlors. The mirrors positioned between the front windows and between the windows on the opposite
end of the room have to be the most enormous "full length mirrors" I've ever seen. The mirrors over the fireplace mantles,
same! The double parlor, which is clearly the largest room in the entire house, was likely the room also used for entertaining.
So, like the ballroom at Nottoway Plantation, these mirrors no doubt came in handy for discreetly checking oneself for anything
out of place before someone else pointed it out.
Slideshow Gallery
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You will notice that some of the pictures on the walls are blurred. This is something I do for purposes of privacy.
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The Haunted Garden
Linked below is a December 2017 article about the history of the Soria Creel House on the Holiday Home Tour. Shown below the
link are a few images of the house's front door, gate and fence that are from this article.
Holiday Home Tour - 3102 Prytania Street
The Garden
 Detail Closeup
of the Front Gate
 House on the
Corner
 Detail Closeup
of the Fence
I'm trying out different ways of presenting images on the Parlor, which is why you see two different types of image galleries
above.
These are of the Soria Creel house as it appears when it's not playing the home of the Mayfair Witches.
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The Scenery
Scaling the Garden District
One thing about these houses that completely astonishes me is their scale. In the image of the double parlor that gives a
closer, more direct view of the windows, we start to get a much better idea of their true size. Most of us are used to homes
where doors are doors, windows are windows, and only one of them is used for entering or leaving the room.
Like this:
If the windows are so big that one can lift the lower sash and walk right into a room as if the window were a door, then how
big are the doors? There are interior doors, but then, there is the front door.
Seeing Stella/Rowan (Alexandra Daddario) standing at the front door, we begin to get a better idea of the enormous scale of
these Garden District houses.
When reading The Witching Hour, one finds a description of the scale of the second floor of the Mayfair house (1239 First
Street). Ceilings are a little lower on the second floor than they are on the first floor. I understand interiors of the Mayfair
house for the AMC series were filmed on a soundstage, we can still get an idea of the scale of the second floor from it.
We can see this when Carlotta goes to knock on Deirdre's bedroom door:
*Parlor Note: I make some GIF images go in reverse as well because
one direction makes them too jumpy to really look at details in them. Other times, it can make for a nicer flow of animation.*
Just why were these houses built with ceilings soaring that high over everyone's heads? And what is the purpose of transom
windows above doors on the second floor? The answer is "air flow".
This is another reason why these older houses in New Orleans are so unique. Not only is the history and culture part of what
makes New Orleans stand out as unique among American cities, but so is its climate. In a time long before air conditioning
or even a nice swamp cooler, people needed a way to cool the air inside their houses. Since heat moves UP, the higher the
ceiling, the further away from the occupants the heat is.
Of course, there needs to be somewhere the heat can go besides being contained in the rooms. Transom windows on the second
floor serve that purpose. This might also explain why these houses had such massive sash windows that could be used to enter
and exit the house. Interior doors are still pretty enormous in scale, which you can get a good idea of here:
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Welcome To the Dollhouse
Is this...?
Yes, it is!
The dollhouse made of the Soria-Creel house for AMC's Mayfair Witches. This dollhouse appeared in Episode 5, "Julien's Victrola".
When Rowan tried to return from her visit to Julien Mayfair's "hidey-hole", his afterlife in the Victrola, only a part of
her returned. Julien held onto the intellectual part of Rowan while the part of her governed by her heart returned to her
living world in the Mayfair house. Julien clearly used the dollhouse model of the Mayfair house as a means by which he watched
his living descendants. When Lark appeared at the Mayfair house to look for Rowan, Julien's ability to interact with the
living is demonstrated in what might seem like a harmless prank.
I said seem.
When Julien blew at the front doors as Lark approached them, Lark experienced this the way many who experience odd things
with doors. The front doors just swung open. To Lark, they appeared to do this on their own. Rowan, on the other hand,
was not amused. When she demanded to know why Julien had done that, he seemed amused as well as pleased with himself when
he answered, "Because I can!"
Naturally, this dollhouse fascinated me. Not just because I love miniatures, but because it was fascinating to see this after
having built my own 3D model of the Brevard-Rice house as the Mayfair house of the novels. There is a behind-the-scenes featurette
for Episode 5 on the YouTube channel for amc+. A longer behind-the-scenes video is also available on amc+ and provides even
more details about the dollhouse.
The dollhouse itself appears to be something of a "shell", meaning the house model does not have an interior (kinda). Some
of the rooms appear to have had something like what could be called half of a "cyclorama", a curved panoramic image of the
interior meant to make the house appear to have an interior when looking at the windows. Many who build 3D models of buildings
sometimes use a cyclorama to give the appearance of a realistic outdoor environment from the inside of the model. A sky,
a treeline, perhaps even buildings or hillsides in the distance.
The most fascinating aspect of the dollhouse was how the scenes were filmed to appear to be taking place within it. The short
explanation is camera angles and greenscreen. If you watch the behind-the-scenes featurettes, it will give a more detailed
explanation of how this incredible effect was achieved.
It really is as if Julien Mayfair's ghost kept watch over the house and everyone and everything in it. Clearly, he could
interact with living Mayfairs by manipulating the dollhouse in ways that echoed in the real house. He is like a puppet master,
or perhaps he would prefer to be thought of as "God-like"? One can certainly see that Julien Mayfair saw the living Mayfairs
as his dolls to manipulate at will, making such a dollhouse an excellent means of showing how he saw himself in relation to
his family. It also shows, with the help of the world inside Julien's Victrola, that this view of himself did not stop at
death.
I don't know what has become of this dollhouse, but maybe, if it still exists, it can be given an interior? It can even be
given working lights! Around my house somewhere are actual miniature kiln-fired bricks, and even wallpaper in miniature patterns,
plaster crown moldings, baseboards, wood floor sheets... Yes, if one is so inclined, this can be made into a real miniature
showcase...
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NOT the Soria-Creel House
The Soria-Creel house is a beautiful house with its own history and is located in the same historic neighborhood as the Brevard-Rice
house. As discussed, it is the house used in the AMC series as the home of the Mayfair Witches.
To help further clear up confusion and uncertainty as to which house is the witch house, you will find below links to the
pages of the Parlor that discuss the house Anne Rice used in the Lives of the Mayfair Witches as Rowan's ancestral
home. You will also find a link to a page of the Parlor that discusses the home Anne Rice used as the home of Mona Mayfair,
the home identified as being located on Amelia Street in New Orleans in Lasher and Taltos (start reading, y'all,
now that the word "taltos" has been said in the show). Anne Rice also owned this home at one point, but it is NOT the home
Rowan inherited in the novels.
For more about Anne Rice's New Orleans home that she used as
the home of the legacy Mayfair Witches in her novels:
The Witching Hour - Inside First Street
For more about the home Anne Rice used as the home of Mona Mayfair
in Lasher and Taltos:
Amelia Street: The Fontevrault Outpost
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House Rule
This is a PRIVATE residence.
The Parlor understands this particular house is an historic property in an equally historic neighborhood. If your visit to
New Orleans includes a tour of the Garden District, please be respectful of property lines and the privacy of the home's occupants.
Thank you! ~The Parlor
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