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Dorothée Lassize: Not one to stick to traditions [1]

['Tammy C. Barney', 'More Tammy C. Barney', 'Verite News']

Date: 2024-04-12  

As an entrepreneur, free woman of color and mother, Dorothée Lassize often bucked early 19th century traditions.

Tradition said she should marry a Creole man. She chose Samuel Moore, a wealthy, white Protestant from Natchez, Miss., as her partner in life and business. Tradition said she should live a “life of leisure” with Moore. She chose to flip French Quarter houses. Tradition said she should build a cheap Creole cottage as her home. She chose to build an expensive townhouse.

“Samuel and his partner Dorothée, combined, bought and sold over 50 properties in New Orleans and raised a family of seven children,” New Orleans Historical states. “The couple never legally married but remained together for life.”

Lassize’s most famous sale involved two properties on Dauphine Street. She used the profits to buy land on St. Louis Street to build her 1828 townhouse.

“She built a fine American Greek Revival townhouse in the latest fashion sporting costly imported East Coast building materials … white marble, Quincy granite, East Coast fine red brick,” New Orleans artist and Creole history buff Andrew Lamar Hopkins wrote on his blog. The brick is “laid in a costly Flemish bond, the mortar is made of fine Gulf Coast white sand. This is some of the finest brickwork in the French Quarter.”

At the same time, wealthy Creoles were building homes “of local cheaper materials like the soft slave-made bricks that had to be covered with stucco to protect them,” he added.

Before her death in 1829, Lassize had achieved great financial success. Her estate included numerous properties.

“Although Dorothée Lassize did not live long to enjoy her beautiful French Quarter townhouse,” Hopkins wrote. “She left behind a living legacy of beautiful architecture for us to enjoy today. As a free mixed-race Black woman of French and African descent, her achievements were great for the times she lived in.”

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