Henry Howard: Louisiana's Architect Hardcover – June 9, 2015 by Robert S. BrantleyAuthor), Jan White Brantley (Photographer), Victor McGee (Contributor), The Historic New Orleans Collection ( (Princeton Architectural Press)

Being an architetural historian, I have many books on the lives and careers of great architects. None surpasses this one. I've been aware of Henry Howard since the 1950's and lamented the fact there was no biography detailing his life and career. I recently heard about the book, and quickly got a copy and can say it exceeds my most hoped for expectations. It is visually stunning, for starters, magnificently illustrated with superb photography and architectural renderings, archival photographs seldom seen, prints, drawings, etc. The prose is wonderfully readable and clear, moreover.  book is incredibly comprehensive with everything heretofore known about Howard as well as well as new information,as example, presented regarding the atribution of Windsor Plantation by Howard, which frankly, does not surprise me. Anyone interested in the South, the architectural history of the South and New Orleans, most certainly should have this magisterial and in a sense, incomparable book!

Few nineteenth-century architects ventured far from the pattern-book styles of their time. One architect not constrained by tradition was the Irish-born American Henry Howard, who started as a carpenter and stair builder in 1836 New York and arrived in New Orleans the following year, soon establishing a reputation for distinctive designs that blended American and European trends. His career gained momentum as he went on to design an extraordinarily diverse portfolio of magnificent residences and civic buildings in New Orleans and its environs.

Henry Howard is a lavishly produced clothbound volume featuring hundreds of contemporary and archival images and a comprehensive analysis of his built work. The first book to examine the forty-year career of the architect, Henry Howard establishes a clear lineage of his aesthetic contributions to the urban and rural environments of the South.


Princeton Architectural Press co-publishes Henry Howard with The Historic New Orleans Collection: a museum, research center, and publisher dedicated to the study and preservation of the history and culture of New Orleans and the Gulf South.