Elevated on a bluff thirty feet above sea level, one mile and a half of E. Scenic Drive remains from the approximately four miles of historic waterfront estates that existed before hurricanes Camille (1969) and Katrina (2005). Shaded under canopies of live oaks, many of the remaining houses date to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and some retain their historic outbuildings.
The c. 1910 two-and-a-half-story front-gabled Craftsman house at 513 E. Scenic ( pictured above), constructed by master builder Frank Wittmann Sr., features textured wood shingles, flared eaves, and balconies. Octagonal columns support the porch’s first story, and projecting carved purlins create a long horizontal line that extends to cover a porte-cochere. Katrina’s surge washed out the front porch and wall. The repairs (2005–2006) overseen by Koch and Wilson were among the earliest post Katrina and came to symbolize Pass Christian’s recovery. Behind the house is a one-story garçonnière (c. 1890).
The two-story David Markle House (1936, Koch and Wilson; 533 E. Scenic), with its flared hipped roof and undercut galleries shaded by louvered shutters, is a French Colonial Revival design; its original symmetrical tripartite massing is obscured by post-Katrina additions. The c. 1850 house at 625 E. Scenic was remodeled and expanded in a Colonial Revival manner by Frank Wittman Sr. around 1913. An undercut gallery with rectangular posts wraps three sides, and four original French doors flank the fanlit central entrance. The gallery’s scalloped wooden trim is repeated on the servants’ quarters at 623 E. Scenic.
The McCutcheon houses at 829 and 861 E. Scenic (1850 and 1848, respectively) are two of several residences built by Swiss immigrant master craftsman Frederick Sutter, who came to the area in 1842 and later served as mayor. Both are hipped-roofed planter’s cottages dominated by Greek Revival galleries. In 1938, builder Frank Wittman Sr. elevated the house at 829 on an arcaded brick basement with curved stairways at each end and replaced the central French doors (still seen at number 861) with a Colonial Revival entrance.
The Harrison-Balter House (1849; 849 E. Scenic) has a Creole-influenced en suite plan—four rooms long and one room deep. Octagonal columns support the undercut gallery, which was extended around 1905 to create a porte-cochere. Outbuildings, some of which may also date to 1905, include a servants’ quarters/detached kitchen (mostly rebuilt in the 1990s), bathhouse, carriage house, octagonal pavilion, and two octagonal privies. Abandoned for almost two decades after Hurricane Camille, the property was restored in 1990.