On the plot of land numbered 211 on a 1728 map of New Orleans, Heather Harllee’s three children have found treasures: willowware china; old shoes; handwrought nails; a pirate’s map on graphing paper; glass bottles from the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia, when West Virginia was just Virginia; an icon of the Virgin Mary; railroad spikes—possibly for spiritual protection; children’s initials carved in a door.
In 2010, soon after Harllee bought the Creole cottage on lower Bourbon
