Beauregard Keyes House
This historic home in New Orleans’ French Quarter might be quartering a few phantoms
Paranormal Claims at
Beauregard Keyes House
- The apparition of General Beauregard has been seen
- Phantom dances are seen and heard in the house
- Sounds of ghostly gunfire have been heard
- Apparitions of Civil War soldiers have been seen
- Smells of rotting flesh and gunpowder have been reported
- Cold spots have been encountered by visitors
- A woman’s apparition has been seen surveying the home and garden
- A ghost dog has been seen and photographed around the house
History of Beauregard Keyes House
The French Quarter neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana, is no stranger to hauntings. Along with being the oldest neighborhood in the city, the French Quarter is host to countless historic homes and businesses, including the famous Cafe Du Monde and Antoine’s Restaurant.
The area is steeped in local lore, and is home to numerous ghost tour organizations and even the Museum of Death.
But even if you’re not specifically looking for spirits in the French Quarter, you might just find some. One historic house-turned-museum in the neighborhood, the Beauregard-Keyes House, is well-known as a place to spot a few specters.
Once the home of a Confederate general, an accomplished writer, and even a few mobsters, there’s no telling what spirits you might meet at Beauregard-Keyes.
Timeline of Beauregard Keyes House's History
Swipe or use timeline points to see Beauregard Keyes House through the years
1826
The bright yellow New Orleans home now known as Beauregard-Keyes started with neither a Beauregard nor a Keyes. Instead, an auctioneer named Joseph Le Carpentier had the home built for his family in 1826. Though they built the house, the Le Carpentiers spent relatively little time living there.
The family departed in 1833, and the home went through several more owners until the mid-1860s. It was then, in the aftermath of the Civil War, when it became the home of one of its future namesakes.
1865
In 1865, Confederate General PGT Beauregard returned to Louisiana after several years fighting in the Civil War. He hoped to find a new direction in New Orleans, and during his early years in the city, he and his family rented Beauregard-Keyes House. And while he never truly owned the property, General Beauregard would end up leaving an undeniable mark on the property.
Beauregard and his family left the home in 1868 after just three years. The home would go on to be rented to numerous other tenants through the remainder of the 1800s.
1904
In 1904, the Giacona family bought the French Quarter home. The Giaconas, Sicilian immigrants, used the home’s basement as a wine and liquor cellar to support a successful local business. Their enterprise proved so successful that it caught the eye of the ‘Black Hand,’ a gang of extortionists similar to the modern mafia.
The group harassed the Giaconas until the family invited them to dinner, under the guise of giving into demands. Of the four gangsters who entered the home, only one walked out alive.
1910
Corrado Giacona and his father Pierro were quickly arrested, and the night’s tale soon came out. Allegedly, the group of Black Hand thugs spent hours drinking the Giacona’s wine and hounding them for payoffs. Soon after getting the thugs drunk, the Giaconas made their move, pulling guns and shooting three of the men dead at the table.
Another ran out the door, wounded by gunfire. Despite the vivid recollection, both Giaconas were exonerated in 1910. And though this was the home’s major brush with death, it was far from the last chapter in its history.
1944
In the early 1940s, the home would get its second namesake tenant. In 1944, Francis Parkinson Keyes rented the upper floor of the home while she stayed in the city researching a novel. Keyes would end up a long-term resident of both New Orleans and the Beauregard-Keyes House.
She bought the home not long after and began a long restoration process. When she died in 1970, Keyes’ restored home became a museum, per her wishes. Though it’s been a museum for over fifty years, there might still be a few ghosts maintaining residence in the house.
Is Beauregard Keyes House Haunted?
Paranormal reports have been commonplace around the Beauregard-Keyes House since it first opened up to the public. Some of the earliest claims are of apparitions, particularly that of General Beauregard.
It might be surprising that his ghost would haunt the house he merely rented for a few short years, but his ghost apparently brings friends along with him. Along with the General’s ghost, apparitions of Confederate soldiers also appear, many sporting terrible injuries.
Spectral Soliders in New Orleans
It is said the General’s fellow spirits hail from the Battle of Shiloh, where they lost their lives at Beauregard’s command. Reports suggest that many of these figures are missing limbs, while a few memorable specters may also be missing whole portions of their heads and faces.
When the blown apart soldiers appear, they’re said to often be accompanied by the smells of rotting flesh, blood, and gunpowder. Some people also report hearing sounds of gunfire and cannon blasts around the home, as well as painful moans and groans of wounded soldiers.
The Ghost of General Beauregard
Aside from simply appearing as an apparition around his old house, General Beauregard’s specter is often seen searching for something.
In her life, Francis Parkinson Keyes noted that the General’s ghost was looking for his boots. Apparently, the search continues to this day. When he does find his boots again, he purportedly uses them to dance alongside the other ghosts of the house.
Attend a Ghostly Gala
Sounds of fiddle music and numerous shoes clattering on the home’s ballroom floor are also sometimes reported in the museum. Some have even spotted a few spectral figures dancing and twirling along to the music.
General Beauregard himself has been seen amongst the crowd of ghostly revelers at times, dancing with a woman in a white dress.
The woman in white has proved to be a regular appearance around the house as well. At first, some guessed it was Beauregard’s wife, Caroline, even though she died before she could ever live in the house.
In recent years, the lady in white traversing Beauregard-Keyes House has been figured to be the ghost of Francis Parkinson Keyes herself.
The Spirit of Francis Parkinson Keyes
Keyes’ phantasmic figure is a somewhat regular sight around her old house. She spent a long time living in and carefully restoring the house into the museum it is today, so it only makes sense she would stick around in the afterlife to keep tabs on things.
Whether traversing room-to-room or lingering in the garden, Keyes’ figure doesn’t seem to pay much mind to visitors or workers, but rather the home itself. Though if you get in her way, you might feel a cold breeze brush by you, or spot the end of a dress flow by and disappear through a doorway.
The Luckiest Ghost Dog in Louisiana
While she hasn’t brought a gang of ghostly friends with her like General Beauregard, Francis Parkinson Keyes may be keeping a friend nearby: her dog, Lucky. Lucky spent Keyes’ last years as a friendly companion. Rumor has it he died just a few days after she did.
Now, apparently just like her, Lucky haunts the halls of the Beauregard-Keyes house. The misty figure of a ghost dog has been photographed in the house, while other visitors have spotted the translucent image of a small dog trotting through the halls.
Do Gangster Ghosts Haunt the House?
Of course, the Beauregard-Keyes House’s bloodiest day has also left a paranormal mark on the property. Remnants of the Giaconas’ shooting of the Black Hand members are reported throughout the house, often near where the shooting took place.
A regular claim is a cold spot that will linger right in the area where the Black Hand gangsters were shot.
In the home’s front hall, ghostly blood trails have appeared suddenly, seemingly tracing the surviving gangster’s path out of the house.
But, the trails purportedly disappear just as quickly as they pop up. Along with that, some visitors claim the home’s sounds of gunfire and groans of pain are phantoms of the Giacona shooting, rather than Civil War victims trotted in by Beauregard’s ghost.
History & Hauntings at
Beauregard Keyes House
Whether it’s the result of a moment of bloody vigilantism, the life experience of a Civil War leader, or just the home’s generations of collective history, the haunting tales at Beauregard-Keyes House offer a layer of uniqueness to the French Quarter museum.
In a neighborhood where the competition includes the Museum of Death, who wouldn’t want a little bit of one-of-a-kind flair?
The Beauregard-Keyes House remains dedicated to its mission as a museum, so you won’t likely find many offerings of ghost hunts or flashlight tours. The home’s ghost stories are long-standing and well-known in the city though, so the home has become a frequent stop on New Orleans ghost walks and French Quarter tours.
Of course, if a walk-by isn’t quite enough, you can always take a traditional tour through the museum. Your exploration of the exhibits might be interrupted by the boom of ghostly gunfire…or maybe just General Beauregard nudging by you to find his boots.
