• Royal Street Complex
  1. Merieult House
  2. Counting House
  3. Maisonette
  4. Williams Residence
  5. Townhouse
  6. Louis Adam House
  7. Creole Cottage
• Williams Research Center
  1. New WRC Addition

The early two-story masonry house at 722 Toulouse Street provides a high wall for the adjoining courtyard of the Williams Residence. The house that Louis Adam built here in 1788, after the first great fire destroyed an earlier structure, appears to have escaped the second fire of 1794, according to a plan dated December 25, 1794, in the Archive of the Indies in Seville. The widow of Louis Adam sold the property in 1805. That same year, the house changed hands several times and was finally bought by Joseph Guillot, who, along with his partner Claude Gurlie, was a prominent architect-builder. Guillot and Gurlie made improvements and sold the house to Jean Baptiste Soraparu in 1810 for a price indicating a substantially enlarged structure.

The building gradually lost its colonial exterior over the years and was sold and resold many times. In the 1930s, the house was opened to boarders and for a short time a young playwright—Tennessee Williams—lived high up in a garret room.

When architect Richard Koch photographed number 722 Toulouse Street in 1945—the year it was purchased by General and Mrs. Williams—the house was run-down and greatly changed. The Williamses repaired the building, but restoration to the original Spanish colonial style did not occur until the 1970s. Architects from Koch and Wilson were guided by a drawing in the Notarial Archives that revealed a wood gallery and high-pitched, tiled roof. Today, the Toulouse Street building houses the The Collection’s publications/marketing department.