- Baroness Micaela Almonester de Pontalba
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Baroness Micaela Almonester de Pontalba 
Portrait of Baroness Micaela Almonester de Pontalba. It is displayed in the Louisiana State MuseumBorn Micaela Leonarda Antonia Almonester
November 6, 1795
New Orleans, LouisianaDied April 20, 1874
Paris, FranceNationality American Ethnicity Spanish and French Occupation Businesswoman Known for The design and construction of the Pontalba Buildings in the French Quarter of New Orleans Religion Roman Catholic Spouse Xavier Celestin Delfau de Pontalba, Baron de Pontalba (m. 1811–1874) Children 6 Baroness Micaela Almonester de Pontalba (November 6, 1795[1]- April 20, 1874) was a wealthy New Orleans businesswoman, and one of the most vibrant personalities of that city's history. An opera and many novels have been written about her dramatic life.
She was responsible for the design and construction of the famous Pontalba Buildings in Jackson Square, in the heart of the French Quarter.
Contents
Family
Micaela Leonarda Antonia Almonester was born November 6, 1795, in New Orleans, Louisiana, the only child of Andres Almonaster y Rojas (June 19, 1728- April 26, 1798), and his aristocratic French wife, Louise de la Ronde, a member of one of the oldest white Creole families in the city, and a cousin of General Pierre G.T. Beauregard.[2] Don Andres, a native of Mayrene, Andalucia, Spain, was a wealthy notary and politician who amassed a fortune in real estate from his power on the Cabildo, the Spanish governing council of New Orleans, and his contacts with the Spanish Crown[3]. On 20 March 1787, he married Louise de la Ronde, the daughter of Pierre Denis de la Ronde and Marie Madeleine Broutin, who was 30 years his junior having been born on July 25, 1758.
Her father died in April 1798, when Micaela was two and a half years old, and her mother Louise shortly afterwards married her second husband, Jean Baptiste Castillon. Being the sole heiress to a considerable fortune, Micaela was likely the richest little girl in the city. She was educated, along with other daughters of the elite, by the nuns at the old Ursulines Convent situated on la Rue Conde, now Chartres Street.[4]
Marriage
In keeping with Creole tradition, a marriage was arranged for Micaela in 1811 when she was fifteen. Her husband was her cousin, Xavier Celestin Delfau de Pontalba. Shortly after her wedding on October 23, the de Pontalbas left Louisiana for France, where Micaela would trade her life as a pampered Creole girl for a terrifying existence at Mont-l'Évêque, the de Pontalba chateau outside Paris. Although she bore her husband six children, and there was a constant succession of balls and parties held at the chateau, the interference of her eccentric father-in-law made the marriage a disaster.
Her father-in-law, Baron Joseph Delfau de Pontalba, who had served as an officer in the French and Spanish armies, was greedy and unstable, and would soon make Micaela's life a complete misery. The old baron, intent upon seizing the sizeable Almonester fortune, forced Micaela into signing a general Power of Attorney giving her husband control over her assets, rents, and capital, both dotal, and as heir of her father. Whenever she returned to New Orleans to visit her family, the baron accused her of deserting her husband. By the 1830s, she was a virtual prisoner of the Pontalbas. In Paris she began a series of lawsuits to obtain a separation from Xavier, but lost them due to the strict French marriage laws.
Her attempts to protect her fortune enraged the baron, and finally on October 19, 1834, he shot Micaela point-blank with a pair of duelling pistols. Afterward, he committed suicide with the same pistols. She survived, despite having been shot in the chest and hands, with her fingers shattered. Pontalba was so inept that it took several attempts to kill himself.[3]
The Pontalba Buildings
Finally, after several more lawsuits, Micaela was granted legal separation from her husband, who had become Baron de Pontalba upon his father's suicide; however, they were never actually divorced. In New Orleans, a civil law judge ordered the restitution of her property. Her contemporaries described her as shrewd, intelligent, vivacious, and business-like. In the late 1840s, Micaela designed and commissioned the construction of the beautifully elegant town houses in Jackson Square in the heart of the French Quarter, today known as the Pontalba Buildings. Their construction cost more than $300,000. When the Swedish singer Jenny Lind visited New Orleans in 1851 she stayed at the apartments; afterward, Micaela auctioned the furniture Lind had used. Micaela was also instrumental in the name change of Place d'Armes to Jackson Square; as well as the decision to convert it from a parade ground to a formal garden.
She also commissioned the construction of a large town house in Paris, known today as the Hôtel de Pontalba and official residence of the United States Ambassador to France. When Micaela Almonester de Pontalba died in this mansion in Paris on April 20, 1874 at the age of seventy-eight, she was already a legend in the city of her birth.
Sources
- http://www.FrenchQuarter.com.
- Jackson Square by Henry Renshaw.Louisiana Historical Quarterly
- Old Ursulines Convent.Website.
References
Categories:- 1795 births
- 1874 deaths
- American businesspeople
- Louisiana Creole people
- People from New Orleans, Louisiana
- American people of Spanish descent
- American people of French descent
- History of New Orleans, Louisiana
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