by Webb Williams
My friend Paul Gasser has always impressed me with his character and style, and I’ve long been motivated by his experience and wisdom. He has told me some fascinating boom-years stories about northshore real estate, and about some of the earlier movers and shakers, who have tales of their own. Four of these legends graciously shared their stories with me, painting a colorful picture of the history of northshore development.
Ernest Prieto
He claims to be ready to retire, but my first encounter with this wily sage of realty makes me doubt. What a fun 70-year old he is, with his secretary bringing him a glass of red wine just before our noon interview. “For the heart, you know. Would you care for a glass?” I liked this guy right away.
“I sold real estate here from when I got out of college in 1957 through 1970, and have been practicing law exclusively since then. My family’s been involved in real estate on the northshore since 1863, when my great-great grandfather bought several squares (six-acre tracts) and many lots for $1,500 cash. To have that much cash back then, he must’ve been running guns, selling rum, or involved in prostitution—but I haven’t figured that out yet. I’m the fifth generation here, with two more behind me.
“In 1903, my grandfather acquired a thousand acres north of Mandeville around from Helenberg Road to the interstate to Abita Road. He had a grocery, and I recall he had inherited 2,000 head of cattle that roamed from Madisonville to Slidell, open range. He bought the property for about two to three dollars an acre. In 1933, he bought 6,000 acres and started a sawmill here on Bayou Castine. This was before Highway 190, so he had a fleet of five schooners to ship his lumber to Slidell and New Orleans. In the late ’30s, property in St. Tammany was selling for about $10-15 an acre.
“Weldon P. Smith bought large tracts in those days. I remember Mr. Smith paid me for an appraisal once with a calf. He bought about 400 acres at $10 an acre where Mandeville High and Weldon Park are today. He had cattle, too. When the Causeway came through his property in the 1950s, the land was appraised for about $300 an acre. He later sold land on West Causeway for $600 an acre. Now that property is worth about $50,000 an acre.
“The Causeway in 1955 upset a few people who had businesses on the lakefront, but it had the biggest impact on northshore real estate. The interstate was the next biggest influence, providing more access to property that was landlocked between Mandeville and Slidell. Besides being another boost to values, it also helped improved drainage dramatically. The east-west and north-south crossing of interstates propelled Slidell’s growth and Hammond’s as well, both commercially and residentially. The Michoud rocket facility brought 300-400 families from up north—and they needed housing.
“All that growth caused by the Causeway, the interstates, and Michoud resulted in great concern by the populace to upgrade the school system. High millages were gleefully passed, enabling more schools to be built, more teachers to be hired, and led to the northshore having perhaps the best school system in the state. That fueled even more growth from New Orleans.”
Mr. Prieto recalls, “An important developer in the early boom days of the 1950s was L.P. Smith, who built homes in the DeSaix Boulevard area of New Orleans. He bought a couple hundred acres from the Poitevant Lumber Company, which became Old Golden Shores on the west side of the Causeway and New Golden Shores. The lots were approximately 70 feet by 140 feet, priced at $6,000. He built many structures in Mandeville, like Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church. He went on to develop Tammany Hills, Westlake, and other subdivisions.”
Eddie Deano, Jr.
Eddie Deano, Jr. is a real estate attorney who grew up in a northshore real estate family. I first met Eddie when he and Patrick Clanton started Ruby’s Rendezvous, now Ruby’s Roadhouse—but that’s another story. A state representative from 1984 to 1996, he and his sister, Becky Deano, an appraiser, practice out of the building that was the family real estate office on East Causeway Approach.
“My grandfather, Guy Deano, was in the real estate business with my father, Edward Deano, in New Orleans for some time before they opened a branch office on the northshore in Mandeville in the 1940s. It was in the old St. Tammany Hotel on the lakefront, where the condominiums are now. They thought Mandeville would be a real hot spot for real estate.”
Early Subdivisions
“About that time we began to see the first subdivisions—like Golden Shores and Covington Country Club in the late ’50s and early ’60s. Tchefuncta Country Club began development about that time, too. When the first subdivisions were being built, with the roads and utilities put in place and the first homes built, folks were shocked at the small size of the lots—even though they were about 100 by 200 feet, quite large by today’s standards.
“My family developed a subdivision called DeVal Subdivision on Highway 59 with 100 by 400 foot lots, which were bigger than many. It was named for our family and the Vallon family, who were partners in the venture. The closer to the Causeway, the smaller the lot sizes, generally.
“I always thought an interesting subdivision was West Beach Parkway Subdivision, developed around 1926. It was bordered by Carondelet Street, Galvez, Monroe and the lakefront. If you look at a map of the subdivision, it looks like an art deco architectural trim that was popular in the 1920s—with the oval and the square—a beautiful design. Restrictions included the size and value of the house.
“The best-planned subdivisions? I’d have to say Covington Country Club, Tchefuncta, Riverwood—they’re still basically in virgin pine forests. The low density and respect for the environment contrast sharply with some of the clear-cut subdivisions that came after. Thank goodness we have stronger parish rules in place for development now.”
A Relaxed Approach
“The real estate business in those days and on to the ’50s wasn’t what you and I think of today. There wasn’t the maniacal rush for everything. It was a much slower-paced business. There were only about four or five realtors in Mandeville, and a few more in Covington. They all tended to know each other, went to school and church together, and often did business on a handshake basis. Things were a whole lot less hectic, with much less paperwork, and every effort made to hold deals together. There was a much more personal touch—making sure all the utilities got hooked up right, etc. Socializing with clients was more the norm in those days.
“No cell phones, no faxes, no e-mails, so things moved a bit slower, but there were such simpler systems and forms, too. There was no MLS—there was Norma Core. She was an abstractor, and she put out the St. Tammany Legal News, or something like that, and she did all the sales that came through the courthouse. And the magnitude of the real estate boom becomes evident when you understand that there were five times more sales recorded from 1960 to today than there were in the previous 150 years in St. Tammany Parish! Much land on the northshore was devoted to timber, and as those long-term timber leases expired, more property became available on the open market.
The Personal Touch
Deano continues, “In the early new-Causeway days, there was just a handful of single-office real estate agents. For the most part, they were from the area, they knew everybody in the area, and learned of folks wanting to buy or sell by word of mouth. It was an eclectic group that always had feelers out and was connected to the community. Today you have the national chain mega-agencies with multiple offices and only a handful of agents from here.
“The lenders have all changed today, too. In the old days you’d go ask Mr. Ross or Mr. Blossman for a loan on a piece of property, and they usually knew the property, knew the borrower, where he worked, his family. They’d look you square in the eye and tell you whether they’d stake you or not. It was kinda’ like the classic film ‘It’s A Wonderful Life,’ where personal trust and confidence were the criteria for loans. There was Commercial Bank and Citizens—that was about it. To build a house or buy a lot or a house was a simpler matter then. Today we seem to have more banks than New Orleans has barrooms, and more on the way!”
Scandal Houses, a Bust
and the Future
“In the 1930s and ’40s there were what we always referred to as the ‘scandal’ houses, built by state political bigwigs on large tracts of land with state materials and state labor. The late Justin Wilson’s house was originally built by the head of state parks in the ’40s—spectacular architecture. There’s a huge place on Kiskatom in Beau Chêne that was built by one of the Huey Long cronies in the ’30s. There are many such ‘scandal’ homes scattered throughout the parish.
“[In] the late ’70s and early ’80s … the oil bust and the [Savings and Loan] crisis, with property under-capitalized, combined to make for a real horror story. Some two-thirds of all conveyances in the courthouse at the time were foreclosures! We were approaching another Great Depression here at that time.
“The future? The financial viability of our parish government is dependent on real estate. We cannot sustain ourselves without growth—a lot of growth—and what makes our government weak is the unbalanced distribution of taxes. People are taxed out. We don’t need more taxation. We need fairer distribution of those funds. But no entity wants to give up tax monies to another. It’s a Catch-22.”
Max Derbes
Active for years on both the New Orleans and St. Tammany real estate boards, Mr. Derbes, now 81, was also on the board of the National Association of REALTORS®, bringing national stature to our area and always working to raise standards in the business.
I met this most impressive, soft-spoken gent in his home in Country Club Estates. A giant in the business, he spoke with a humble honesty of values—both property and personal—and with a refreshingly different perspective.
“I’ve always been a real estate appraiser, though I’ve been good friends with many realtors through the years. The big boys didn’t get rich quick—they got rich slowly, developing large tracts over the years, like Riverwood, Country Club Estates, Beau Chêne, etc.
“Marie and I moved our family here in 1960, and I was close to realtor Eddie Deano, who was a fixture on the northshore. Long before, in 1934, my father bought a house on Lamarque Street and we’d spend summers there, where I first met and befriended Eddie. When we moved over permanently, I renewed friendships with Eddie Deano and Oscar Breeding, a major broker and developer in the Slidell area.”
“The Causeway bridge made all the difference in the world, enabling commutes of less than an hour to downtown. And the Causeway came about mainly because the engineers and the builders saw a way to make a lot of money on its construction. They needed the Jefferson parish vote in the legislature, and that’s why it spanned from Metairie on what used to be called Harlem Avenue (now Causeway Boulevard) to Mandeville instead of from the Orleans/Jefferson parish line to Lacombe. Luckily, it panned out well. I guess I’ve crossed it around 15,000 times in my life.”
Derbes stresses the idea that speculation on property can take a long time to be profitable. “I bought the 150 feet by 200 feet lot beside our home here in Covington Country Club for $2,300 in the early ’60s, and it’s worth $150,000 today. Land has always been a highly speculative commodity with the largest amount of return. And unless there are adverse conditions, like high taxes, bad neighbors, etc., values go up over time. Supply and demand factor in as well—the less land available, the more the value increases.
“One of the joys of buying residential real estate over here is the stability we have. We don’t have adverse inner city influences, high taxation or poor schools. People don’t understand that houses are consumer commodities. We derive benefits from a house by enjoying it, by living in it, raising a family in it—that’s the joy of home ownership. The only way to realize a profit is to sell it. Then you’ve got to go out and start over again. The enjoyment of a residential property should be the goal, the main motivation for buying and keeping a home. The stability of the family home is a wonderful institution.”
Paul Gasser
I first met Paul Gasser when he was a lieutenant in our new Krewe of Orpheus in the ’80s. He inspired me to go into real estate. He’s been the gentleman realtor you can totally trust since the early ’70s, and his knowledge of the market has set the bar way up high. He’s slowed down a bit to travel and enjoy the fruits of his labors with his wife and partner, Gwen, but he took time to share some reminiscences for this article.
“I came over and got into real estate based on my travels in California and Atlanta. I saw that large metro areas bred satellite communities, and since Metairie was pretty much built out, this was the ‘promised land’ for development.
“The area was adversely affected by the Arab oil embargo in the early ’70s, which really hurt the fledgling Beau Chêne at the time. The [Savings and Loan] crisis with all the foreclosures hurt, and we were stunned to see property values decline dramatically. I sold property on Highway 22 for $2 and $3 a square foot that resold after foreclosure for a buck a square foot. A lot of local speculators really got hurt bad.”
Beaux Chênes?
“I remember a sign in the ’60s where Beau Chêne’s entrance is that spelled it Senator Russell Long’s way: Beaux Chênes. He and his partners owned the original 550 acres at the time. They sold a 10-acre tract at the mouth of Bayou Tete L’Ours and the Tchefuncte River to Phillips Petroleum, which planned to operate a marina there. The subdivision went belly up, and a Baton Rouge bank took the property back. Morgan Ernst and Lester Kabacoff then bought it, excluding the 10-acre tract—that was land-locked. A friend and I bought that 10 acres for about $48,000 and sat on it for about five or six years. I had asked Morgan for a right-of-way to the property, and he would always laugh at me. A survey he did showed a bridge that he wanted access to was on our property, so he changed his mind. We were then able to sell the 10 acres for $450,000.”
Paul showed me an aerial photo of the Mandeville area taken in 1973. It showed: Covington Country Club and Riverwood had only a few houses then; Forest Park Estates had nothing built; Tall Timbers showed roads cut, but not yet paved; Farley’s Nursery, which is now Meadowbrook; Tanglewood; Red Arrow Campground, which is now Cedarwood; and a lot more undeveloped property. It’s a stunning testament to the tremendous growth of the area in 30 years.
“Cost per square foot was a new concept in the ’70s. Folks were used to price per acre. In the ’70s and ’80s, a lot of people invested in real estate as a hedge against inflation.”
Major Players
“The Blossman family developed Covington Country Club, and Riverwood was created by L.P. Smith. Louis Bollinger developed Golden Shores. I went to work with Eddie Deano, an M.A.I. appraiser who hired me as a real estate agent and my wife as our secretary. She brought home the steady paycheck as I learned the business over here.
“I’d drive neighborhoods and call agents with homes for sale, make appointments to see the house, and I’d make notes on cards about the details. This was before the MLS—it became my own MLS in my mind. I could drive areas with buyers and rattle off details that impressed the heck out of folks, and I’d make sales. There’s too much inventory to do that today, but that intimate knowledge of a house makes a big difference.
“In 1984, we started our own business, and Gwen and I worked seven days a week for seven years. We sold it in 1996, but we’re still involved with long-term clients.”
Too much growth?
“I look around today and see too many strip centers being built. Low interest rates are sparking this construction, but rents that people have to charge are quite high, and I’m just afraid there’s not enough business here yet to support all of the retail space that we have. On the other hand, the proliferation of the larger centers is keeping more money here instead of going to Metairie or other centers.”
Big deals
“My biggest deal? I’d like to think I haven’t done it yet, but I s’pose from a commission point of view, Fontainebleau subdivision. The second would be the new Target Center at Highway 21 and I-12. Earlier on, when I still worked for Eddie Deano, I worked closely with the archdiocese’s real estate committee and did a lot of consultation to maximize the value of their property. That involved 70 acres of land on North Causeway and, in negotiations with the Archbishop, I suggested that they sell property they owned where the Mandeville Post Office is now for a million dollars and cut the required road in (St. Ann Street), costing them a million in construction. He questioned my sanity, but I assured him the property in between (now filled with upscale apartments and offices) would pay off ten times over. It did, and then some.
“My most interesting deal? It didn’t pan out, but interesting it sure was. In 1975, Carlos Marcello wanted to see a home on the bayou on Jackson Avenue. He popped into the office … we talked about what he wanted to see. I told him I’d lead his Cadillac entourage in my ’73 Chevy (with a hole in the seat), but he said he wanted to ride with me. His daughter, son-in-law, and his wife followed us in the Caddie. He was really a personable, nice guy, and I said something about knowing who he was, and he seemed surprised. He assured me that he was merely a successful tomato merchant from the west bank of New Orleans.
“Showing Carlos Marcello this big estate on the water, I recalled that the last name of the guy who originally built it began with an “M,” and the letter “M” was carved in stone in the den by the fireplace. There was a rug over it, and I thought to myself, aha, here’s the clincher. I pulled the rug back and revealed the “M” and he said, “Not bad—put the rug back.” We looked in Folsom and other areas, but never made a deal.”
Paul and Gwen Gasser now enjoy their well-deserved piece of paradise they’ve earned and built for themselves on Lake Pontchartrain in Lewisburg.
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