Schuster Mansion

This mansion on Hickory Street in Lafayette Square was built in 1881 for Edward J. Schuster. Schuster owned a printing company and used his fortunes to build this mansion at the corner of Hickory and Second Carondelet Ave, which is now South 18th Street. This mansion is one of the more elaborate examples of a Second Empire mansion that survives outside of Benton Place. While a number of the larger Second Empire mansions on Lafayette Ave and Mississippi were destroyed in the 1896 tornado or demolished during the urban renewal period in the mid 20th century, but this mansion was spared, possibly due to its close proximity to Harris Row, which was used as one of the structures that preservationists cited as a reason to block the construction of highway 755, which would have taken out the eastern half of the neighborhood. Today, the area survives almost fully intact, as most of the houses were restored in the 1970s and 1980s.

Photo of the Schuster Mansion in 1939 by William G. Swekosky