This Italian Villa style house is famous for a very unique feature. It has a fence fashioned with wrought iron cornstalks. The fence was built by the same company that made a similar fence for the French Quarter's Cornstalk Hotel. The mansion was built by Colonel Short, and the fence added as a gift to his wife who was homesick for the corn fields of her native Iowa. Built around 1860, this mansion is massive, spanning 9,800 square feet. There are several other cornstalk fences throughout New Orleans, mostly patterned in imitation of this mansion and the Cornstalk Hotel.