Sandra Bullock in the Garden District
Even famous people love the Garden District in New Orleans. At the corner of Fourth and Coliseum Streets you’ll view the charming Koch-Mays Mansion. Unlike the majestic Greek Revivals and Italianate houses surrounding it, this was built to resemble a Swiss chalet. It is owned by Academy Award winning actor Sandra Bullock.
Mikko Macchione
Tour Guide with Unique NOLA Tours and Author of books about New Orleans.
Bullock is a kind of a house collector, owning seventeen mansions around the country. Her New Orleans jewel box of a home, also called the Eustis Mansion, was built in 1876 by noted local architect James Freret. It features hand-carved gingerbread adorning three gables. And high-reaching wooden finials seemingly flying above the house. The entire property is fenced off with podocarpus, or plum pine. The effect is very fairy tale and restful.
Bullock is a major world movie star constantly on lists of most powerful actors and most beautiful. She burst on the scene in the thriller Speed, then seemingly rolled out blockbuster after blockbuster – A Time to Kill, Prince of Egypt, Miss Congeniality among them. She won the Oscar for her work in The Blind Side.
Sandra is well known for her generosity giving millions to causes like the American Red Cross and several disaster relief organizations including one that benefited victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake and Texas victims of hurricane Harvey in 2017. Here on the home front she donated money to help restore Warren Easton High School after Katrina.
On the domestic front, she lost her partner photographer Bryan Randall to ALS in August 2023. He happily helped raise her two adopted children. She adopted her son Louis who was born in New Orleans in 2010. She later adopted her daughter Laila, who was also born in Louisiana, in 2015.
Busy Sandra Bullock does not come to New Orleans as much as we would like, but there are rumors that some of her famous friends will crash at the house at times.
