Denbo-Montgomery House

This structure is named after the Denbo-Montgomery family who built the house on Lafayette Street downtown, and who occupied it until 2001, when the property was sold to Lafayette’s First Baptist Church. The Denbos and Montgomerys were prominent Lafayette families during the first half of the twentieth century. Mrs. Denbo’s daughter, Elisabeth Montgomery, was born in the house the year it was built and lived there until her death in 2001. The subsequent owner, Mrs. Kolleen Bowen Verlander, purchased and moved the house from its original lot near the southwest corner of Lafayette and Convent Streets to just south of Girard Park in order to save it from demolition. Mrs. Verlander, daughter of the former Lafayette mayor, Kenny Bowen, learned through research that John Kennedy Toole, Pulitzer Prize winning author, had lived in the apartment located behind the main house and moved with the main house. Toole lived there in 1959 and 1960 while teaching at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.