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Envisioning the Mayfairs and Their World
Click to view Table of Contents
What did the Mayfair Witches look like? Who did they resemble in the books? I started this page in the first few years after the site first launched in 2008...
These galleries are collections of some of the approaches I've taken in trying to see if I could recreate the Mayfair Witches the way Anne Rice described them in the novels.
As more and more novels have made their way to the screen, more and more fans have used a wide range of newer technology to return to the source material--the novels themselves. We've seen some amazing graphics shared by users across various platforms showing the characters as described by their authors. The Game of Thrones series, including House of the Dragon, is one notable example.
There have been many fans who have taken this approach to the Vampire Chronicles, as well. The Parlor does have a newer section opened for discussing this series, which is far more well-known than the Mayfair Witches, yes. Lestat's Parlor opened during Season 2 of the recent AMC series, but also aims to provide more background on the publication history of Anne Rice's novel, and some of the graphics created that seemed to later inspire the screen adaptations of the novel and its many sequels.
Come Into My Parlor, however, remains primarily focused on the Lives of the Mayfair Witches. There is one page that is a little different from when I originally published it, though. The Doorway, the Thirteen and the Mayfair Emerald. Many of us over the years have created images or graphics of what this piece of jewelry might look like. Then, I went back to the novel, The Witching Hour.
This is the wonderful part of things like Amazon Kindle. Once it indexes the books you buy, you can do a search like it's a concordance. And you can get an exact reference to include that will give the location in the ebook and, if the publisher includes this data, the corresponding page number in the Mass Market edition of the novel. So, I did a search for the emerald necklace.
Putting together a detailed description of the emerald necklace straight from the novel, I wanted to see what such a piece of jewelry would have looked like. An Internet search showed me a great deal, and gave me a much clearer idea of what an emerald necklace, a pendant necklace, might have looked like as Anne Rice described it. So, I put together the section on the above linked page that discusses the Mayfair emerald of the novels.
The Doorway, the Thirteen and the Mayfair Emerald now includes some of the images I managed to find online. The images aim to show what an historically accurate necklace like the one in the novels would look like. Of course, my own attempts to create a 3D version of the necklace also appear in the section.
Over time, I've also learned that NightCafe has learned how to create a necklace such as the one described, and I have developed quite a collection of images showing it on various character creations. At the top of this page is one of those character creations as an example. I've also indulged as well in--my favorite--showing the Mayfair emerald as a tiny, miniature addition to pieces of cameo jewelry that took me a while to create the way I wanted.
The necklace is such an integral part of the Mayfair Witches that I think it deserves discussion in its own right.
Recently, Anne Rice's estate has released a Special Edition of The Witching Hour with a new forward by Christopher Rice, illustrated by Art of the Imagination. I've decided to focus more on the Mayfair emerald and the many ways it has been depicted since the novel's publication in 1990 rather than on the Mayfair Witches themselves. The illustrations in this new edition of The Witching Hour include each of the Legacy witches and are truly incredible.
Along with the new, illustrated editions of both The Witching Hour and Interview With the Vampire, another piece of news has dropped on Anne's Facebook page. This fall, a 50th Anniversary edition of Interview With the Vampire...
You can see some of the cameo creations above along with others on Come Together: The Mayfair Witches.
A Ghost on the Stairs
Here and on YouTube at the moment is a brief video with a bit of sarcasm--my way of saying there is just too. much. PINK. here. The room is the master bedroom, which we do know is directly over the library. You can see the dimensions and the placement of the fireplace, windows and drapes are basically identical to the library below.
The window treatments (fancy way of saying drapes, curtains, etc) do have a frame that is more ornate and matches the detail at the tops of the main and cutaway doors of the first floor. This I was able to see from real estate photos of the house. However, I have not been able to find a layout of the second floor of 1239 First Street despite numerous searches over the years. This is why the door to the master bedroom isn't just out of range of the camera at the moment; it isn't even there, yet.
There are two more real estate photos of the bedrooms on the second floor, but other than the placement of the fireplaces (the ones fitted for gas, if I am not mistaken) and the windows in one of the bedrooms, I've yet to figure out where the doors leading to the second-floor hallway are.
A Haunted Mirror
The master bedroom is a location of the house that appears in the Lives of the Mayfair Witches series in significant parts of the story. It was Deirdre Mayfair's bedroom and religious items were on the dresser along with a picture of Deirdre's daughter, Rowan, on the deck of the Sweet Christine in 1983. This is the bedroom of the Designee of the Legacy, and where Deirdre Mayfair died the very night Michael Curry returned to New Orleans.
Rowan Mayfair and Michael Curry did not designate this bedroom as the one they would share, however. It was the bedroom at the front of the house, the one that opened onto the second-floor gallery. But after Rowan disappears with Lasher, and Michael was found floating face-down in the swimming pool while suffering a heart attack, the master bedroom is where Michael slept after returning home from the hospital.
When Mona Mayfair managed to get into the house through a bathroom window on the first floor, she found Michael in this room, awake and reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, his favorite novel. This explains its presence on the nightstand in the (for now) very pink bedroom with white painted furnishings.
The music playing in the video is The Charleston by the Isham Jones Orchestra from 1925. Sixty years after Stella Mayfair was murdered in the parlor during one of her Roaring Twenties parties, her great-granddaughter Rowan would hold the first party since that night in the same room. During the wedding reception, the song played again, and Mayfair wedding guests danced to it like 1929 was just yesterday. And Michael Curry saw Stella, a ghost still bearing the gunshot wound to her head that had killed her there 60 years earlier.
When you think about it, Rowan Mayfair was the first Designee since Stella to actually enforce her rightful control of the house. Lasher didn't seem to tolerate any attempts at fixing his ruinous masterpiece until Rowan returned. Like the house itself was held hostage in some way as long as Carlotta Mayfair did everything she could to maintain control of the house by controlling the actual Designees: Antha and Deirdre.
Then, Deirdre died, and Carlotta sorely underestimated Rowan. Clearly, there had been no contingency plan in place should Ellie Mayfair die without finding a way to make sure Carlotta was notified. Had Carlotta known Ellie Mayfair had died, and died after her husband, chances are Carlotta would never have called Rowan's house demanding to speak to Ellie Mayfair. And since she couldn't stop Rowan from traveling to New Orleans after instructing the funeral home to not close Deirdre's casket until after she arrived, and knowing what she did about Rowan's abilities, Carlotta found a bizarre way out of having to face any responsibility for what she had done to both Antha and Deirdre. Well, to Stella as well, along with many others over the decades.
The wing of the house that includes the library and the master bedroom were later added by Emory Clapp, the second owner of 1239 First Street. For this addition, Clapp hired the original architects Albert Hamilton Brevard had hired to build the house--James Calrow and Charles Pride.
Old Hollywood Comparisons
Below is a relic of both the Talamasca's descriptions of Mary Beth Mayfair and Stella Mayfair according to the actresses they resembled physically, and a long ago guess of mine as to who would make a great Rowan Mayfair on screen. And then...who did play Rowan onscreen.
So, what did the Mayfair Witches look like? Other characters? It might be fun to add more to this page, especially as (I hope) more characters in the Mayfair Witches series make it to the screen themselves...
Mary Beth Mayfair was said to resemble Joan Crawford.
Stella Mayfair was said to resemble Clara Bow.
My Choice of Actress to Play Rowan Mayfair (several years ago):
Ashley Judd.
One of my favorite actresses, Ashley Judd has the deep voice, great beauty and presence that makes me think "Rowan Mayfair".
To try to imagine what Rowan Mayfair actually looks like based upon the descriptions of her in the books, I think Ashley Judd is the closest physical model of her. She is also the actress who would be able to portray her accurately and intelligently.
So, who did end up playing Rowan Mayfair?
The Mayfair Witches Finally on the Screen
And in hindsight, the results have been rather...I have no words for it.
In January 2023, AMC and AMC+ released Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches as a television series. Season 1, based mostly on The Witching Hour, the first novel in the Lives of the Mayfair Witches series, cast Alexandra Daddario as the main character, Rowan. However, the show does have some marked differences from the source material.
The first is that instead of naming the main character Rowan Mayfair in keeping with the novels, she was named Rowan Fielding. The character retained the profession of neurosurgeon, making her Dr. Rowan Fielding. The image above shows Dr. Rowan Fielding standing outside the Mayfair crypt during the entombment of her birth mother, Dierdre Mayfair. Behind her, you can see names of other Mayfairs entombed in the crypt, and the name of one who is not.
Rowan Mayfair.
Deirdre and the rest of the Mayfair family were told Rowan had died at birth, though this was not true. Still, it was still a moment that had an oddly chilling effect when I first saw the name of the character as it had been in the novels engraved on the crypt.
Stella Mayfair, mother of Antha, grandmother of Deirdre, great-grandmother of Rowan. Sean Lacy Mayfair was just Sean Lacy in the novels, and he was Deirdre Mayfair's father. Antha was Deirdre's mother. For those who are confused about where Carlotta Mayfair fit into all of this, Carlotta Mayfair was the sister of Stella Mayfair.
And there is Millie Dear, whose ghost greeted the doctor by the old, haunted swimming pool in the beginning of The Witching Hour. That particular detail--Millie's presence in the Mayfair house as a ghost in the present day--was in the novel.
What of the rest of the Mayfair Witches, then? Other characters in the novels?
Below, you'll find some basic information and graphics from the AMC shows.
The Witching Hour Opens...
From Page...
...to Screen
Watch AMC's Mayfair Witches Yule Log ASMR Ambience on YouTube
Multimedia
Stream both seasons here: Mayfair Witches on AMC/AMC+
Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches Opening Titles
Mayfair Witches - Main Title Sequence for AMC on Behance
Want to make your own opening credits like these incredible opening credits? This video will show you how with Adobe After Effects:
Click Thumbnail Image to View on YouTube
Anne Rice's Immortal Universe
The opening credits for Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches begins with a graphic made for AMC and used with both this series and the recent Interview With the Vampire Series. It is the Immortal Universe graphic.
I found the website of the artist who made the graphic, shown above as a still image, for AMC. It's an incredible graphic, and I wanted to provide the website of the artist in case you'd like to learn a little more about it.
Make Lovely: Anne Rice's Immortal Universe
The Mayfair Witches Mansion
The house used in the new show is not the actual house Anne Rice lived in and set her Mayfair Witches books in. BUT. It has a lot of structural similarities, doesn't it?
I LOVE the graphics made by Immortal Universe for the series! This is one of the first ones I found. Look at the shadows moving around in the doorway...
This is another stunning graphic made by Immortal Universe. I believe this type of animated image is called a cinemagraph.
Even in daylight, the Mayfair house is a haunting vision of creepy decay...
See some of the work of stills photographer Alfonso Bresciani on the Mayfair Witches series on his website: Alfonso Bresciani Photographer
Filming Locations
Filmed April 25 - September 1, 2022
New Orleans, Louisiana
Soria Creel House, Prytania Street, New Orleans (Private Residence)
Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans
St. Bernard Parish Hospital, Chalmette, Louisiana, USA (Doctor Keck's Office)
The Ranch Film Studio, Chalmette, Louisiana, USA
Mayfair Witches Filming Locations on IMDb
Was 'Mayfair Witches' Filmed in Anne Rice's Hometown of New Orleans? Let's Investigate
***The website link referenced in the above article is this website under its former domain, www.comeintomyparlor.com***
Media-AMC Networks
Copy and paste this URL to go to AMC Networks Official Site: https://www.amcnetworks.com/
For those who have questions about the Interview With the Vampire and Mayfair Witches series on AMC, it has come to my attention that all inquiries must be directed to AMC.
I do not know who at AMC would handle those kinds of inquiries. However, I can at least provide a link to AMC's official website and their press inquiries page. Hopefully, it will be of some help to those with questions of this nature, or at least a place to start.
For Press Inquiries on AMC Networks
For more commentary and a page-to-screen chart with footnotes from the novel by season:
Interested in the Soria-Creel House? Learn more here:
Just For Funsies
AMC had a new typeface, or font, designed for both the Mayfair Witches series and Interview With the Vampire. It is called "Immortal Gothic"...
Fun Factoid
Karl Lemle is also the name of the founder of Universal Pictures, Carl Laemmle (1867-1939), but with different spellings. Universal is known for its horror films that date back to the silent era, the Universal Monsters, and for Halloween Horror Nights at its original studio, Universal Studios Hollywood.
Halloween Horror Nights | Universal Studios Hollywood https://www.universalstudioshollywood.com/hhn/en/us
Complete List of Universal Monsters Movies (1923-1960)
https://www.monstercomplex.com/blog/complete-universal-monsters
Tomb of the Mayfair Witches
For a Halloween special, I thought this would be the appropriate time for this particular model. Based upon the drawing in Katherine Ramsland's The Witches Companion, I've done my best to build the Mayfair tomb according to the illustration.
Mayfair Witches of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1
Ramsland Mayfair Tomb Sketch
In the novels, the Mayfair tomb is located in New Orleans' Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, just blocks away from the Mayfair house in the Garden District. The tomb has fluted Doric columns (which I'm having a minor disagreement with in SketchUp at the moment), and twelve shutters fronting the end-open crypts. To give my best guess of their size, I based the size of the crypts on the size needed for modern caskets such as the one belonging to Deirdre Mayfair in The Witching Hour.
Ramsland Mayfair Tomb NightCafe Render
Any way one looks at it, this is most definitely a tomb massive in size compared to many of the actual existing tombs in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 as well as other New Orleans cemeteries.
Mayfair Tomb Animation
As described, at the top is the Egyptian keyhole doorway that was designed to match the door of the Mayfair house. Twelve crypts, twelve witches, and the 13th witch is the doorway. I added a little something of my own, here. I made the door as a functioning door (it opens), and the model itself is designed so the animation shows light coming on in the windows around the door.
Yes, the little door at the top opens.
This little door reminds me a lot of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, where Alice falls down the rabbit hole and finds this tiny door behind a curtain. Unfortunately, she shrinks herself without thinking to grab the key from the table first. But did you know there is at least one building that actually has little tiny doors like that?
The Tombs of New Orleans
Benevolent Association of Coachmen Tomb, Lafayette Cemetery No. 2
There are tombs of comparable size, though. Notable examples include tombs constructed by benevolent associations. Many of these tombs can be found in Lafayette Cemetery No. 2. One is the tomb of the Benevolent Association of Coachmen.
Red Sash Tours - The Best Cemetery in New Orleans to View Society Tombs
Fun Factoid: Elf Doors
US Capitol Building "Elf Door", Courtesy Architect of the Capitol
Which one of America's most iconic, historic and vitally important buildings has these tiny doors that you might not know about?
The US Capitol building! It was built before indoor plumbing, of course, but when plumbing was installed, the building was so massive there had to be a creative way to check it throughout the building. So, little bitty doors were installed along the baseboards to provide access points. I was futzing around on YouTube just after the January 2021 storming of the Capitol building and found a brief video about these little doors. Fun factoid of the day...