Harem of Horror

The imposing pink building with black iron-lace "frills" on the corner of Orleans and Dauphine streets has dominated the French quarter for more than 150 years not only in height, but in legend and mystery as well. Although a plaque by the entrance calls it "Le Prete House," (spelled Le Pretre by some) it is more commonly referred to as "The Sultan's House" by native New Orleanians in honor of the exotic ghost believed to inhabit it. Over the many generations the building has stood there, it has run the full circle from riches to rags and back again - from a luxurious town mansion of the 1800s to a dilapidated tenement of the mid-2oth century and now to a proximity of its former glory, as one of the most charming buildings in the present Quarter. La Prete was one of these who lost much of their fortune and found that he was forced to rent out his wonderful home. His tenant was a mysterious Turk who claimed to be a deposed Sultan of some distant land. The Turk brought with him a fortune in gold and established a line of credit at all of the banks. He used his wealth to transform the Creole house into an eastern pleasure palace. The doors and windows were covered and blocked, heavy incense filled the air and men patrolled the grounds with curved daggers in their belts. The iron gates around the property were chained and locked and the house became a virtual fortress. What no one suspected, was that the brother had fled to America with large quantities of gold and jewels as well as at least half a dozen wives that he had stolen from his elder brother, the sultan. So it was that the brother, self-proclaimed as a sultan, moved in with his fabulous treasure and his bevy of sensuous maidens and set up house in Oriental splendor where he was known to entertain quite lavishly on occasions. One fateful night, however, goes the story, the gay laughter suddenly turned to frenzied shrieks and the merrymaking to noisy confusion, when a band of assassins, believed to have been sent by the rightful sultan to avenge the wrongs done him, burst in on the party and, with merciless swords, cut down the upstart. There is also some question as to the whys and wherefores of that horrendous crime. Although the majority of people accept the version that the foul deed was done by the sultan's hired henchmen who had tracked down the younger brother from Turkey to New Orleans in a sworn vendetta, others argue that the real culprits were closer to home, mainly the very crew of the ship which had brought the wayward Turk and his stolen cargo to port. For a long time afterward, people insisted that an occasional tinkle of Oriental music or the faint odor of heavy incense would come floating out of the house, and some declared that they heard shrill, unexplained screams coming from different parts of the huge four-story mansion. Over the years, the "sultan" himself has been glimpse walking around the rooms, appearing and disappearing without a word, as if still bewildered by all that happened there.