The Teddy Avenue Historic District [†] was listed on the National Regiter in 2021. It is located west of 3rd Street and east of 7th Street along Teddy Avenue.
The Teddy Avenue Residential Historic District is northeast of downtown Slidell, Louisiana, in the Brugier Addition, platted in 1909 as a railroad‑oriented neighborhood. The nearby rail line connected Slidell to New Orleans. The district encompasses 32 residential properties and 1 site, a public park, on Teddy Avenue between just west of 3rd Street and just east of 7th Street and a portion of 4th Street between Teddy Avenue and Maine Avenue. It is characterized by one-story, detached, single-family residences constructed in the early twentieth century. Construction dates for historic-age properties range from circa 1910 to circa 1950, though most were built in the 1910s and 1920s. The architecture of the district represents popular trends of the era as well as housing forms that reflect local vernacular influences. The Craftsman style is the most prevalent in the district; Revival Era styles and French Creole examples are also present. The houses are of frame construction, generally clad in wood siding with wood windows, and have prominent front porches. Despite a few non-contributing residences and some material and design modifications, the district retains sufficient physical integrity to convey its architectural significance.
Within the district's boundary is a cohesive concentration of single-family residences that, as a collection, illustrate early-twentieth-century residential architectural trends. Examples of the Craftsman, Queen Anne, French Creole, and Period Revival styles are present, reflecting both national and regional building traditions. The buildings in the district were primarily constructed for middle-class buyers and therefore feature elements of these architectural styles rather than being high-style, architect designed examples. Vernacular buildings are also present. Most buildings are one‑story and have a bungalow or cottage form. Some lots have a detached garage and/or shed at the rear, most of which are utilitarian and non-contemporaneous with the associated house.
In 1881, a railroad camp was established in the area that would become Slidell to build a new railroad line to move timber from the region to other parts of the country. A railroad stop was added in 1882, and Slidell was incorporated as a town in 1888. The streets were platted in a grid, extending four blocks east of the railroad, one block west of the railroad, and three blocks extending north to south. Bolstered by the rail line, the primary mode of transportation to and from Slidell, two major brickyards, various manufacturing facilities, and a health-based tourism economy, Slidell grew rapidly in its early years, becoming one of the largest towns in St. Tammany Parish by 1900. By 1920, it had a population of 2,956, up more than 712 percent from 364 in 1890. In 1909, during this intense period of growth, the Brugier Addition, where the Teddy Avenue Residential Historic District is located, was platted and added to the city. The addition was located just north of downtown and east of the railroad and Front Street, a major thoroughfare that paralleled the railroad. With the train depot in walking distance, residents of the addition could commute to New Orleans for work and easily travel to other north shore communities.
The residences in the Teddy Avenue Residential Historic District reflect national and regional housing trends of the early twentieth century, including the Late Victorian and Eclectic Eras of architecture, the Arts and Crafts Movement, French Creole architecture, and vernacular traditions. Research did not reveal any resources in the district custom designed by an architect. Rather, they all appear to have been built by a contractor using readily available building plans and designs and prefabricated materials, which was typical for middle-class housing of the era. Pattern books began to be widely disseminated throughout this period, introducing local builders to new kinds of styles and plans. Local newspapers like the St. Tammany Farmer and New Orleans' Times-Picayune regularly ran articles highlighting the latest architectural trends and floor plans and advertisements for pattern books. Slidell's two local brickyards, the Salmen Brick Company and the St. Joe Brick Works, also sold lumber and building supply materials and offered experts to help prospective buyers plan their new homes. With these kinds of resources, architectural trends evolved quickly at the turn of the twentieth century; this is evident in the district, with its variety of building styles and forms.
Architecture in the United States changed dramatically in the early 1900s as a result of industrialization and the expansion of the railroad networks. The period from 1860 to 1900 is generally referred to as the Victorian era of architecture in the U.S. During this period, new balloon-frame building methods allowed houses to take on more complex forms, and industrialization provided pre-made decorative detailing and components like windows and doors at an affordable cost. With the arrival of the railroad, pre-fabricated building materials like dimension lumber and jigsaw architectural elements could be delivered all over the country, even to rural areas. Modest and middle-class houses began to have complexity and elaboration—elements once restricted to only the wealthiest homeowners.
The Queen Anne style was the dominant domestic architectural design during the American Victorian era from the 1870s to 1900, before waning in popularity through 1910. Identifying features of the Queen Anne style include a steeply pitched and complex roof; an asymmetrical façade often defined by projecting rooms with canted or cutaway bay windows; wall surfaces, such as an open gable, filled with shaped shingles or decorative motifs of differing textures and patterns; partial, full-width, or wraparound porches; and decorative brackets, spindlework, scrollwork, and shaped shingles. In lumber-rich places like Louisiana, the Queen Anne style was widely adopted. A regional variation of the style emerged in response to both climate and cultural building traditions. A typical Queen Anne–style residence in Louisiana is often plainer in style and form than those in other parts of the country. These regional examples are commonly a cottage-like building with a single cut-away bay window and modestly applied decoration. The style could also be applied to forms like the shotgun house or the raised basement house with ornamentation like turned-wood porch supports and brackets. Though the asymmetrical façade is an identifying feature of Queen Anne design in other parts of the country, symmetrical examples are found in Louisiana. Many local examples incorporated the region's heat-alleviating building features, like galleries to improve air flow and hipped roofs that forced hot air up.
Examples of the Queen Anne style in the district reflect this Louisiana variation. The houses at 190 Teddy Avenue and 355 Teddy Avenue are modest vernacular cottages with cutaway bays and Queen Anne embellishments. The house at 207 Teddy Avenue is a unique example with a mostly symmetrical façade, a wraparound gallery, and a complex roof form with two parallel front-facing gables with side gables set on a hipped roof. Decorative shingles in the gable ends exude the Queen Anne style.
After the Victorian era, the next major movement in residential architecture in the U.S. and Louisiana was the Eclectic Era, which occurred from 1880 to 1940. American residences began to emulate the historical styles of domestic buildings in Europe, including traditionally Greek/Roman, English, French, and Mediterranean/Spanish designs. The movement began in the 1880s with a resurgence in the 1920s after World War I soldiers returned home inspired by traditional European architecture. During the Eclectic Era, the Colonial Revival style dominated residential architectural during the first half of the twentieth century. The Colonial Revival style reflects a renewed interest in the early English and Dutch domestic architecture of the Atlantic seaboard in colonial America. Because domestic styles from colonial America were varied, including Georgian, Federal, and Dutch versions, these designs drew freely from all antecedents and combined elements with varying levels of frame building methods allowed houses to take on more complex forms, and industrialization provided pre-made decorative detailing and components like windows and doors at an affordable cost. With the arrival of the railroad, pre-fabricated building materials like dimension lumber and jigsaw architectural elements could be delivered all over the country, even to rural areas. Modest and middle-class houses began to have complexity and elaboration—elements once restricted to only the wealthiest homeowners.
The Queen Anne style was the dominant domestic architectural design during the American Victorian era from the 1870s to 1900, before waning in popularity through 1910. Identifying features of the Queen Anne style include a steeply pitched and complex roof; an asymmetrical façade often defined by projecting rooms with canted or cutaway bay windows; wall surfaces, such as an open gable, filled with shaped shingles or decorative motifs of differing textures and patterns; partial, full-width, or wraparound porches; and decorative brackets, spindlework, scrollwork, and shaped shingles. In lumber-rich places like Louisiana, the Queen Anne style was widely adopted. A regional variation of the style emerged in response to both climate and cultural building traditions. A typical Queen Anne–style residence in Louisiana is often plainer in style and form than those in other parts of the country. These regional examples are commonly a cottage-like building with a single cut-away bay window and modestly applied decoration. The style could also be applied to forms like the shotgun house or the raised basement house with ornamentation like turned-wood porch supports and brackets. Though the asymmetrical façade is an identifying feature of Queen Anne design in other parts of the country, symmetrical examples are found in Louisiana. Many local examples incorporated the region's heat-alleviating building features, like galleries to improve air flow and hipped roofs that forced hot air up.
Examples of the Queen Anne style in the district reflect this Louisiana variation. The houses at 190 Teddy Avenue and 355 Teddy Avenue are modest vernacular cottages with cutaway bays and Queen Anne embellishments. The house at 207 Teddy Avenue is a unique example with a mostly symmetrical façade, a wraparound gallery, and a complex roof form with two parallel front-facing gables with side gables set on a hipped roof. Decorative shingles in the gable ends exude the Queen Anne style.
After the Victorian era, the next major movement in residential architecture in the U.S. and Louisiana was the Eclectic Era, which occurred from 1880 to 1940. American residences began to emulate the historical styles of domestic buildings in Europe, including traditionally Greek/Roman, English, French, and Mediterranean/Spanish designs. The movement began in the 1880s with a resurgence in the 1920s after World War I soldiers returned home inspired by traditional European architecture. During the Eclectic Era, the Colonial Revival style dominated residential architectural during the first half of the twentieth century. The Colonial Revival style reflects a renewed interest in the early English and Dutch domestic architecture of the Atlantic seaboard in colonial America. Because domestic styles from colonial America were varied, including Georgian, Federal, and Dutch versions, these designs drew freely from all antecedents and combined elements with varying levels of with pier supports, some with tapered square columns atop. Some examples in the district feature additional side or rear porches for increased ventilation and respite from the heat, and brick accents, likely sourced from a local brickyard. Windows on Craftsman residences are typically single, paired, or grouped double-hung wood windows, sometimes with a divided-lite upper sash. Wood casement windows are also common. Craftsman-style residences, including all the examples in the district, are typically one or one-and-one-half stories in height.
French Creole architecture has a broad and deep history of development in Louisiana with a long period of popularity, roughly from 1700 to 1860, in southern Louisiana. While its popularity declined in the region with the arrival of other styles like Queen Anne, French Creole domestic architecture continued to be built into the twentieth century. French Creole houses fall into two subtypes: the urban townhouse, mostly found in New Orleans, or the cottage, found outside city centers and in rural areas. The French Creole examples in the nominated district reflect the resurgence of the style from the late 1800s to the early 1900s and the rural cottage subtype.
The French Creole cottage subtype is characterized by a steeply pitched and broad spreading gable or hipped roof that covers integrated galleries or verandas supported by slim wood colonnettes. They feature numerous narrow window openings and French doors framed by shutters. Many examples are raised above grade to enhance ventilation. Whereas early examples are asymmetrical, later examples may reflect the symmetrical influences of Anglo-American architecture. Examples in the district include 224 Teddy Avenue and 439 Teddy Avenue, both of which are symmetrical with hipped roofs, narrow windows, and deep, inset verandas.
† Adpted from: Emily Reed, Historic Preservation Program Manager; Sandy Shannon, Senior Architectural Historian; and Kory Van Hemert, Architectural Historian Organization: Cox McLain Environmental Consulting, Inc., nomination document, Teddy Avenue Historic District,, 2020, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, DC., accessed July, 2021.
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