Museum Talk! Stacey Pfingsten Talks About Pitot House

Stacey Pfingsten, executive director of the Louisiana Landmarks Society and Pitot House, will discuss the historic house at 7 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 23, at the East Bank Regional Library, 4747 W. Napoleon, Metairie.

This event is free of charge and open to the public.

The Pitot House Celebrates 225 years this year. One of the few West Indies-style houses remaining in Louisiana, The Pitot House was home to the first U.S. Mayor of New Orleans James Pitot and his family, 1810-1819. The only colonial Creole, country house in New Orleans that is open to the public, the building was purchased in 1964 by Louisiana Landmarks Society, an architectural preservation non-profit, which uses the house as its headquarters. The Pitot House is a National Trust Partner in Preservation. 

Built in 1799 by Spanish merchant and shipowner Bartholome Bosque, during the Spanish Colonial Period in Louisiana (1763 to March 1803), The Pitot House has witnessed centuries of cultural history. It is a French-Colonial, West Indies Style (Creole) "country" house.

Eleven families have occupied the house. In 1904, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, founded by Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, bought the house and used it as a convent. In 1964, The Pitot House was acquired by the Louisiana Landmarks Society. 

Stacey Pfingsten has many years experience in the nonprofit sector areas of architecture and historic preservation, most recently at the helm of the American Institute of Architects of Illinois, advocating on state policy initiatives on behalf of 4,200 architects. 

She has served as the executive director of the Louisiana Architecture Foundation, where she organized the South's first-ever annual Architecture & Design Film Festival: NOLA, as well as spearheading LAF's first documentary film.