The Abattoir

The Abattoir, also known as the compound, is a very large house in the French Quarter of New Orleans. It was the primary residence of the Mikaelson Family during the 19th century and in the early 20th century. After the Mikaelson siblings, Elijah, Rebekah, and Niklaus were forced to flee from New Orleans after Mikael found them and tried to kill them, Marcel Gerard, who had lived there with the family as Klaus' adopted son, officially took ownership of the home in their absence. Klaus eventually resumed control of the household when he returned to New Orleans nearly a century later in 2011 and regained his rule over the city.

The home was introduced in The Primordials and was first named in the episode, House of the Rising Son.

Season Six
In The Primordials, the Abattoir was seen briefly when Klaus crashed Marcel's party and bit Thierry in anger after Marcel insulted him for running away from his city from his father.

The Primordials
Marcel took control of the house after the Mikaelsons fled the city in the early 20th century. While he made the house his own, he left Rebekah's room essentially untouched in hopes that she would eventually return home to him.
 * -|Season One=

In Tangled Up In Blue, Marcel hosted a party in the Abattoir as a fundraiser for the city. Klaus and Rebekah both attended, as well as Cami O'Connell, who came at Rebekah's invitation.

In The River in Reverse, Klaus decided to move back into the Abattoir after he won control of the city back from Marcel, taking Hayley with him and insisting that she stay at the compound under his protection.

In Reigning Pain in New Orleans, Davina moved in at the behest of Klaus and a reluctant Marcel. Klaus also ended up inviting Elijah and Rebekah to move back in after they make amends regarding a previous quarrel between them. Klaus reminded his siblings that the compound was their family home.

In The Casket Girls, Klaus brought Tim to the compound and used him to lure Davina back to the house after she had run away, following the revelation that Marcel had lied to her about being in danger. Davina, who felt angry and betrayed by Klaus, Elijah and Marcel, confronted them in the courtyard and used the immense strength she had gained from the incomplete Harvest ritual to punish them for their actions; she forced Klaus to show them all his "real" wolf face before snapping his neck, and forced Elijah to choke on the blood he had fed on earlier. She was in the middle of arguing with Marcel and trying to devise a fitting punishment for him when Rebekah arrived and stabbed Marcel in the chest before Davina could deal with him. Rebekah was later seen carrying an unconscious Davina back to the compound after her friend Tim was killed by Klaus with poison. In a lounge elsewhere in the compound, Elijah went through Davina's sketches and arranged them to reveal she had been sketching evil premonitions she had about Elijah's former lover, Céleste.

In Après Moi, Le Déluge, Davina, who began hemorrhaging magic as the deadline to complete the Harvest ritual came ever closer, was seen vomiting up dirt in her bedroom, and the loss of control of her magical abilities caused New Orleans to experience two strong earthquakes. Elijah brought Sophie to the compound to get information about what was happening to Davina, but Sophie admitted that if the Harvest wasn't completed, Davina's magic would destroy the town. After the Harvest and the Reaping were finally completed and the girls ultimately weren't resurrected as expected, Marcel returned to the courtyard of the Abbatoir and angrily trashed it as a result of how he was overwhelmed by grief from Davina's death.

In Dance Back from the Grave, the compound was shown in flashbacks to 1919, when Elijah and Klaus were brokering deals with the Guerrera family of werewolf mobsters. The compound was also shown to host regular gatherings of witches, vampires, and werewolves in the evening hours. At one such gathering, Marcel confessed to Rebekah that he brought Papa Tunde to New Orleans to run Klaus out of town. Rebekah insisted that the only person Klaus has ever feared was their father, Mikael, so Rebekah suggested that they involve a powerful witch, Genevieve, who was also in attendance, to help them find him and bring him to town to run Klaus out, allowing the two of them to finally be together. In another flashback, a welcome home party was held at the compound for Marcel, who had just arrived home after being deployed overseas as an Army soldier in World War I.

In Moon Over Bourbon Street, Elijah threw a party at the compound in an attempt to bring all five factions of the city (the Originals, the vampires, the werewolves, the witches, and the humans) together so they could ultimately broker a new peace agreement to help heal New Orleans. After Hayley gave an inspiring speech, the factions were finally able to agree on a treaty, and all of the representatives of the various factions (Elijah and Klaus, Diego, Hayley, Genevieve, and Francesca, respectively) eventually signed the agreement in their own blood.

In The Big Uneasy, Elijah revealed his intention to renovate their home, citing the fact that Marcel and his vampire minions had abused their home for the better part of a century as the reason for doing so. Klaus was initially against the idea, but after Elijah argued that he refused to live in squalor, Klaus ended up agreeing with him.

In An Unblinking Death, Klaus is seen searching through his bookshelves in the study of the Abattoir while he searches for his mother's grimoire, but Elijah eventually revealed that he had hidden it from him, as he knew that Klaus had a deal of some kind with the Crescent werewolf clan and didn't want him to be able to continue his plans. However, after the bombings in the Bayou, Elijah ultimately decided that Klaus was right to want to empower the Crescents, including Hayley, with moonlight rings, and gives him the grimoire.

In A Closer Walk With Thee, Genevieve informed Elijah and Klaus that the Other Side was falling apart and that it's not just their father who is afraid of being sucked into oblivion. Later, after Hayley, who was hexed by Monique, passed out at Father Kieran's funeral, Elijah and Klaus brought her back to the compound. Genevieve performed a spell to figure out what had been done to Hayley, and once she had, she sent Klaus and Elijah to get her gris-gris pouch. In the meantime, Hayley was seen in the compound while she was on the Other Side, where she was attacked by an angry Mikael, who sought to kill Hayley and Klaus' then-unborn daughter. After Hayley was brought back by Genevieve, she was seen sitting in her bedroom when Klaus came to talk to her. She informed Klaus she had decided to come back to the compound, and he shows her the nursery he has prepared next to her room, assuring her that he would like her to continue living with them after the baby was born, so they could all live together in their family home. At the end of the episode, Elijah visited Hayley in her room and confessed that in his more than one thousand years of life, he had never been so afraid as he was when he thought Hayley was dying. He was about to leave, afraid to admit his feelings, but Hayley stopped him and kissed him passionately.

In The Battle of New Orleans, Marcel tries to reclaim control of the French Quarter from Klaus and Elijah after learning about their plans for the moonlight rings, which would result in the extinction of vampires. He and his army enter the Abattoir to stop Genevieve from doing the spell, and Marcel leads Klaus away to battle him one-on-one while the rest of the vampires fought Elijah to kill Genevieve and destroy the grimoire. However, they underestimated both Elijah and Klaus' fighting prowess, and Elijah easily bests all of the vampires. It was then that Francesca and her brothers revealed that they weren't humans, but actually Guerrera werewolves who had made a secret deal with Genevieve to take the moonlight stones for themselves in exchange for giving Hayley to the witches. Francesca and her brothers took possession of the stones and triggered their werewolf curses before using their new abilities to bite and attack Elijah and the wounded vampires. Marcel, having also been bitten during his fight with Klaus, returned to the compound to find all of his vampires dead or dying from werewolf bites. Cami tended to Marcel's wounds until Elijah, who had just woken up, realized that Hayley was gone and confronted Marcel about it. He was sure Marcel had taken her, but Cami defended him as they explained what had really happened.

In From a Cradle to a Grave, a flashback showed Hayley and Klaus in their baby's nursery, where Hayley wrote her soon-to-be-born daughter a letter. In the present time, all of Marcel's vampires were dying from their werewolf bites. Davina arrived to save Josh from his werewolf bite with a cup of Klaus' blood she managed to salvage from the street with a spell. Once Hope had been saved by Marcel, he returned to the compound in hopes that he could leverage her for Klaus' blood to heal his vampires, only to learn that they had all been brutally murdered; they assumed it had been the werewolves, finishing off what they had started the previous night, but in reality they had been killed by Mikael. Once the fight was over, Klaus and Elijah were seen discussing the plan for the baby in Hayley's bedroom, while Hayley rocked Hope in a rocking chair in the nursery.

In Rebirth, it was revealed that the Mikaelson compound had closed their doors to the public following the fight in the courtyard and the (faked) "death" of their daughter, who was claimed to have been killed by the Guerreras. During the time following the attack, Klaus, Elijah and Hayley had become recluses in the compound, leaving only for business matters, or, in Hayley's case, to visit the Bayou. Once Francesca learned about the existence of the indestructible White Oak Stake, she ordered an attack on Klaus at the compound during the full moon, knowing that he would be weakened by the use of their moonlight rings, which drew on the strength of his blood. Unbeknownst to the Guerreras, this was all a trap to bring the pack to them so that Elijah, Marcel, and Hayley could take their moonlight rings and return Klaus' strength. The trap was also to finally kill them for their role in Hope being forced to be sent away, and for aiding in Hayley's murder, which led to her transition into a hybrid. In the end, all of the Guerrera werewolves with the moonlight rings were killed except for Oliver. Elijah was also seen trying to pack up the nursery at the compound, though Hayley became angry and ordered him to stop. After the battle against the Guerreras, Hayley angrily started destroying the furniture in the nursery, because she was so overwhelmed with feelings since becoming a hybrid, and was appalled at the fact that she had killed nine of her own people that night.
 * -|Season Two=

In The Other Girl in New Orleans, Klaus invites Camille to stay so that he can protect her from Aurora de Martel.
 * -|Season Three=

In Savior, Camille has been staying for weeks so that Klaus can keep an eye on her.

In Alone with Everybody, Kol is seen to have moved in his family home since he came back. He has now his own bedroom.

In The Devil Comes Here and Sighs, it is revealed that the ownership of the Abattoir has been signed over to Freya to fortify the mansion's defenses. This means that Freya and only Freya can invite vampires in.

In The Bloody Crown, Marcel nullified the deed to the Abattoir and foreclosed it, allowing any vampire, including the army of Klaus' former sirelings, to enter without an invitation. The former sirelings later destroy the Abattoir.

In Gather Up the Killers, five years have passed since Klaus' imprisonment and the other members of the Mikaelson family forced to leave New Orleans until a cure for the Upgraded Original Vampire's venom can be found. The Abattoir has since been abandoned and now serves as Klaus' underground prison.
 * -|Season Four=

In No Quarter,

In Keepers of the House,

In I Hear You Knocking,

In Bag of Cobras,

In High Water and a Devil's Daughter,

In Queen Death,

In Where You Left Your Heart, Henry arrives at the Abattoir with Poppy's body calling for Hope. Some of the members of the Vampire community enter the courtyard, wanting Henry out of revenge for the murder of Poppy.
 * -|Season Five=

In One Wrong Turn On Bourbon,

In Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea,

In Don't It Just Break Your Heart,

Appearances
Vampire Diaries The Originals
 * Season 4
 * The Originals
 * Season 1
 * Always and Forever
 * House of the Rising Son
 * Tangled Up In Blue
 * Bloodletting
 * The River in Reverse
 * Reigning Pain in New Orleans
 * The Casket Girls
 * Après Moi, Le Déluge
 * Dance Back from the Grave
 * Moon Over Bourbon Street
 * The Big Uneasy
 * An Unblinking Death
 * A Closer Walk With Thee
 * The Battle of New Orleans
 * From a Cradle to a Grave


 * Season 2
 * Rebirth
 * Alive and Kicking
 * Every Mother's Son
 * Live and Let Die
 * Wheel Inside the Wheel
 * Chasing the Devil's Tail
 * The Brothers That Care Forgot
 * Gonna Set Your Flag On Fire
 * Brotherhood of the Damned
 * Sanctuary
 * The Devil is Damned
 * I Love You, Goodbye
 * Save My Soul
 * Exquisite Corpse
 * Night Has A Thousand Eyes
 * When the Levee Breaks
 * City Beneath The Sea
 * Fire with Fire
 * Ashes to Ashes


 * Season 3
 * For the Next Millennium
 * You Hung the Moon
 * I'll See You in Hell or New Orleans
 * A Walk on the Wild Side
 * The Axeman's Letter
 * Beautiful Mistake
 * Out of the Easy
 * The Other Girl in New Orleans
 * Savior
 * A Ghost Along the Mississippi
 * Wild at Heart
 * Dead Angels
 * Heart Shaped Box
 * A Streetcar Named Desire
 * An Old Friend Calls
 * Alone with Everybody
 * Behind the Black Horizon
 * The Devil Comes Here and Sighs
 * No More Heartbreaks
 * Where Nothing Stays Buried
 * Give 'Em Hell Kid
 * The Bloody Crown


 * Season 4
 * Gather Up the Killers
 * No Quarter
 * Keepers of the House
 * I Hear You Knocking
 * Bag of Cobras
 * High Water and a Devil's Daughter
 * Voodoo in My Blood
 * Queen Death
 * Phantomesque
 * A Spirit Here That Won't Be Broken
 * Voodoo Child
 * The Feast of All Sinners
 * Season 5
 * Where You Left Your Heart
 * One Wrong Turn On Bourbon
 * Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
 * Don't It Just Break Your Heart

Name

 * "Abattoir" is a French word meaning "slaughterhouse." It is a place where animal carcasses get processed for meat for human consumption.
 * "Abattoir" is of early 19th century French origin, it comes from the verb "abattre" meaning "to fell".

Trivia

 * Marcel liked to host events in the courtyard of the Abattoir, from parties to vampire "fight nights."
 * This compound has been the site of three large and bloody battles for power or revenge. The first was in The River in Reverse, when Marcel and Rebekah tried to trap and overpower Klaus in the Abattoir so that he could then be buried in The Garden, a plan which ultimately failed. The second was in The Battle of New Orleans when Marcel launched an attack on the home to kill Genevieve before she could finish the moonlight stones, not knowing that they would be attacked themselves by the newly-triggered Guerrera werewolves who were armed with the newly-created moonlight stones. The third was in Rebirth when Francesca ordered a raid on the compound to subdue Klaus until he could be killed with the white oak stake; it was there that the majority of the werewolves sent to the house were killed by Hayley and Klaus.
 * The bodies of the vampires killed by Klaus in Marcel and Rebekah's attack on him were burnt there.
 * Diego and all of Marcel's vampires died there.
 * The "M" stands for Mikaelson, although at the beginning of the series, it was presumed to stand for Marcel.
 * Klaus built Hope's nursery in this home.
 * Gia, Elijah's lover was compelled by Klaus to kill herself here by taking off her daylight ring. She was burnt alive while Elijah was forced to watch.
 * Since his return in An Old Friend Calls, Kol has moved in The Abattoir, at his family side.