John Gauche was born in Alsace-Lorraine and was established in New Orleans by the early 1840s. He ran a successful business on Chartres Street importing French porcelain and crockery and was one of the leaders of the New Orleans business community in the mid-nineteenth century. After the Civil War, Gauche bought an unfinished building designed by James Freret in the Moorish style. He fixed up the building and moved the majority of his crockery business to its location on Lafayette Square. When Gauche passed away in 1868, his wife ran the business for several years. In 1883 Gauche’s three younger sons, Winfield, George, and Edward, took over the business. The company suffered a setback when the cast-iron Moresque Building caught fire and burned in two hours, the materials of the building creating a furnace for the contents inside. The company continued for a few years, but the sons liquidated the stock in 1906.