{{Short description|American architect}} thumb|McGehee School
'''James Freret''' (1838–1897) was an American architect who practiced in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was prolific in designing many homes in that area.
== About == Freret was born in New Orleans, Louisiana to Livie (née D'Arensbourg) Freret and James P. Freret.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/islandora/object/tulane:freret|title=James Freret Architectural Drawings|website=Tulane University Digital Library, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library|access-date=2019-01-25}}</ref> His cousin William A. Freret, also an architect, and son of New Orleans mayor William Freret, redesigned the State capitol after the Civil War and headed the Office of the Supervising Architect in Washington, D.C.
He studied in the office of New Orleans architect George Purves early in his career.<ref name=":0" /> Freret went on to study architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in the early 1860s in the atelier of Charles-Auguste Questel, one of the first Americans to study at the Ecole.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="encyc" /> He returned to the United States due to the Civil War, joining the Confederate Army's engineering corps.<ref name="tulane">{{cite web|url=http://seaa.tulane.edu/sites/all/themes/Howard_Tilton/docs/finding_aids/147-James-Freret-Office-Records.pdf|title=James Freret Office Records, Collection 147|date=2013-11-20|website=Tulane University Library|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131202224402/http://seaa.tulane.edu/sites/all/themes/Howard_Tilton/docs/finding_aids/147-James-Freret-Office-Records.pdf|archive-date=2013-12-02|url-status=dead}}</ref> He was wounded in the Siege of Port Hudson, and in 1865 returned to New Orleans to open his own architecture practice.<ref name="tulane" />
== Select works == *'''Moresque Building''', New Orleans (with William A. Freret)<ref name="tulane" /> destroyed by fire in 1897.<ref name="encyc">{{cite web |url=http://www.knowla.org/entry.php?rec=967 |title=Encyclopedia of Louisiana: James Freret |access-date=2011-07-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110814060926/http://www.knowla.org/entry.php?rec=967 |archive-date=2011-08-14 |url-status=dead }}</ref> *'''Board of Trade building''', New Orleans<ref name="tulane" /> *'''Lemann Store''', 314 Mississippi Street, Donaldsonville, Louisiana, NRHP-listed<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|version=2010a}}</ref> *'''Administration Building of the Spring Hill College Quadrangle''', 4307 Old Shell Road, Mobile, Alabama, NRHP-listed<ref name="nris" /> *'''Upper Central Business District''' (Boundary Increase II) one or more works, roughly bounded by O'Keefe, Poydras, Convention Center Blvd., St. Rt. 90 and Howard Avenue, New Orleans (Freret and Wolf), NRHP-listed<ref name="nris" /> *'''Bradish Johnson House''', 2341 Prytania Street, erected in 1872. Residence of Walter Denegre 1892-1929, Louise S. McGehee School since 1929. *'''Little Sisters of the Poor, Convent of St. Mary''' (1886) corner of Prytania and Foucher Streets, New Orleans, Louisiana<ref name=":0" /> *'''Gothic Revival Masonic Hall''' (1867-1871) also known as “New Masonic Hall”, designed for Tivoli Circle, New Orleans, Louisiana but never built.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/islandora/object/tulane:52862|title=Institutional No. 04|website=Tulane University Digital Library|access-date=2019-01-25}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://prcno.org/fourteenth-century-gothic-st-charles-avenue/|title='Fourteenth-Century Gothic' on St. Charles Avenue|date=2018-04-22|website=Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans|language=en-US|access-date=2019-01-25}}</ref> *'''Jewish Widows and Orphans Home''' (1868) New Orleans, Louisiana<ref name=":0" />
==References== {{reflist|30em}}
==External links== *{{FAG|107111495}} *[https://web.archive.org/web/20100923115526/http://lahistory.org/site23.php Freret] in the Louisiana Historical Association's ''Dictionary of Louisiana Biography'' (Scroll down)
{{Commons category}} {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Freret, James}} Category:1838 births Category:1897 deaths Category:19th-century American architects Category:American expatriates in France Category:Architects from New Orleans Category:People of Louisiana in the American Civil War Category:École des Beaux-Arts alumni Category:Confederate States Army personnel