During the colonial period, the land was owned by the Marigny de Mandeville family and, through the years, by other well-known Louisiana families—Delachaise, Forstall, Macarty, Destrehan, and Perrilliat. The present lot, once part of a larger property extending to the corner of Chartres and Conti Streets, was part of the succession of Celeste Robin de Longy, widow of Jean Noel Destrehan, in 1825. A long, low structure—described as a maison à étage—with a separate kitchen at the back of the property was demolished before the construction of the present-day building.

Completed in June 2007, HNOC’s annex to the Williams Research Center was the first new construction in the French Quarter to be done after Hurricane Katrina. The addition provided HNOC with a lecture hall, named the Boyd Cruise Room, as well as three floors of archival storage.

New Orleans architect Davis Jahncke based his design for the addition on a drawing obtained from the New Orleans Notarial Archive. The illustration depicts a hotel, complete with a blush-hued facade, that stood on the exact lot in the 1850s.

In addition to following the design, Jahncke also implemented several 19th-century building techniques, such as hand-hammered hardware and a false carriageway and chimneys.