Denbo-Montgomery House

This house is named after the Denbo-Montgomery family. It was built at 1106 Lafayette Street, downtown Lafayette, and was occupied by the family until 2001, when the property was sold to Lafayette’s First Baptist Church for a parking lot. The Denbos and Montgomerys were prominent Lafayette families during the first half of the twentieth century. Mrs. Denbo’s daughter, Elisabeth Denbo-Montgomery, was born in the house the year that the house was built, and she lived there until her death in 2001. The subsequent owner, Mrs. Kolleen Bowen Verlander, purchased the house and the apartment house behind it, to save the buildings from demolition. She moved it to her property at Girard Park Drive, located immediately south of the park. Mrs. Verlander learned through research, that John Kennedy Toole, Pulitzer Prize winning author, had lived in the apartment as a guest of Mrs. Denbo-Montgomery, before the house was moved. Toole lived there in 1959 and 1960 while teaching at UL Lafayette.