Notable New Orleanians: A Tricentennial Tribute

Micaëla Leon Arda Antonio
Almonester Pontalba.
THE HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION,
1974.25.27.358.
two projects, a replacement for the Cabildo, and a Presbytere, with a loan that the city eventually
repaid. Of Almonester’s buildings, the latter two alone remain standing.
Andrès Almonester came to New Orleans from Spain, in 1769, as the royal notary or escribano royal
with General Alexandro O’Reilly. He practiced as a notary until 1782, when he gave up his commission,
purchased a seat on the Illustrious Cabildo, and began investing in New Orleans real estate. As a young
man he lived frugally, at one point without any servants. In 1787, he married Louise de la Ronde, a
Creole from a socially prominent family who spoke no Spanish and lacked a dowry. It appears they had
been lovers, since five years before the marriage Andres had given her a large house with servants.
Micaela was the Almonesters’ only child to reach adulthood. Her father’s death, in 1798, left his
estate in the hands of his wife Louise, who turned out to be a wise investor. Although citizens
ridiculed her second marriage, in 1803, to a man much younger than she, the union soon ended
in the husband’s death. In 1811, about the time she began looking around for a husband for
Micaela, she received a letter from Joseph Xavier Delfau de Pontalba in France, a distant relation.
The letter suggested Pontalba’s son Célestin would be a good match for Micaela. Louise agreed, and
in a matter of just months Célestin arrived in New Orleans, met Michaela, and married her in an
outsized ceremony at St. Louis Cathedral.
The couple, followed by their two mothers, moved to the Pontalba estate Château Mont-l’Évêque
outside of Paris. There Micaela met Célestin’s father, a New Orleans-born Creole and newly-established
Napoleonic baron. Pontalba soon displayed his reason for arranging the marriage: enriching his family
at the expense of his daughter-in-law. Micaela, with the resolve of her parentage, resisted his efforts to
give him full control of her money. As a result he made her life miserable, treating her as an outcast. All
the while, the young couple lived together most of the next twenty-three years until 1834 when Baron
Pontalba succumbed to his rage at Micaela for her
failure to turn her personal fortune over to him. In
her small bedroom in the Chateau, he entered and
shot Micaela with a pair of pistols and then, after
brooding all day in his study, fatally shot himself.
With two balls lodged in her chest, Micaela
lived on for forty years. Her first task was to get out
from under the Pontalbas, a legal process that took
several years before she received a divorce, a New
Orleans judge giving her full control of her fortune.
By 1840 she was established in Paris where
she lived comfortably in her first building project,
the Hotel Pontalba. This magnificent structure now
houses the American Embassy in France.
The Revolution of 1848 prompted Micaela to
leave France, first for London and then for New
Orleans. In the city, she examined Jackson Square
and the aging rental property that her father had
built flanking the square. Reflecting on the elegant, galleried appearance of the Place Royale (now
Place Vosges) in Paris, she conceived of the great project of her life, row houses for each side of the
Place d’Armes, soon renamed Jackson Square. It took Micaela three years and $300,000 to design
and launch the construction of the Pontalba buildings that stand today as an exquisite echo of Paris
in New Orleans.
Over the course of her marriage, Micaela had four sons and a daughter. She outlived her former
husband, dying in Paris, in 1874.
For additional reading see Christina Vella, Intimate Enemies: The Two Worlds of the Baroness de Pontalba. Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1997; Leonard v. Huber and Samuel Wilson, Jr., Baroness Pontalba’s Buildings and the
Remarkable Woman Who Built Them, New Orleans, 1964.
NOTABLE NEW ORLEANIANS: A Tricentennial Tribute
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