When vacant and crumbling plantation homes on the River Road north of New Orleans were being leveled to make way for progress in the mid-1900s, Gray plucked Evergreen Plantation in Edgard on the west bank of the Mississippi from that fate. The year was 1946.

Unmarried when her father, John Geddings Gray, died in 1921, she, not her brothers, took the reins of his oil and timber business. It was a remarkable move for the time, but she was a remarkable woman. Matilda Gray possessed a keen intelligence, a strong drive and confidence in her ability, say those who knew her.

View of Evergreen Plantation from the rear showing the formal boxwood garden.

To help her re-do her country estate, she turned to New Orleans architect Richard Koch, who was known for his restoration of historic Natchez properties and Oak Alley. Gray was one of several preservationists rescuing plantation homes from death by decay around that time. Others were the Crozats at Houmas House, the Stewarts at Oak Alley and the Judices at L’Hermitage, all on River Road.

When Gray chose Evergreen Plantation, she acquired not only a grand house in the Greek Revival tradition, but 37 other structures, mostly antebellum (built before the Civil War). Of key historic importance in the description of this historic property are the 22 slave cabins. No other plantation in the South can boast of this many. Author Richard Sexton calls them “a melancholy vestige of the institution of slavery.”

The cabins remain in their original, double-row configuration, and 82 live oak trees, estimated to be about 200 years old, shade the cabins. This allée of oaks is not in front of the house, as one might expect. Evergreen was well known for its formal garden encompassing the front lawn. The highly photographed oak allée is on the side, stretching back to the cane fields in a vanishing point. The trees were reportedly planted by a slave woman whose name has been lost to history, according to Mary Ann Sternberg in Along the River Road.

If the slave cabins give you pause, add one more statistic to Gray’s acquisition on River Road—2,263 acres of land with sugar cane fields, a swamp and even a piece of Lac des Allemands. Imagine your lot measuring about three miles deep!

The parlor on the main floor, with a portrait of an early Creole woman.

Because of the history of the house, the agricultural heritage and the slave cabins, Evergreen sits beside Mount Vernon and Gettysburg in having achieved the nation’s highest National Landmark historic designation. It is also on the National Register of Historic Places. But Evergreen was in need of a makeover, and Gray tackled it with the confidence of the CEO that she was.

When Gray acquired Evergreen, it had been sitting neglected and forlorn for about 14 years. Bought by Alfred and Edward Songy in 1894, it had been known previously as the Becnel Plantation for 100 years; the Songys named it Evergreen. Some 35 years later, hard times struck with mosaic disease attacking the cane and a record-setting flood swamping the fields. The Depression followed soon after. Farmers could not recover from that many lost crops, and many plantations were taken over by banks during this period, including Evergreen.

The Early Days

The story of Evergreen begins with the arrival of the Germans at the port of New Orleans in the 1700s. Ambroise Heidel (which became Haydel) and his five sons lived along the west bank of the Mississippi. The extended family eventually owned five miles of river frontage on the so-called German Coast. Ambroise’s son Christophe farmed the site of present-day Evergreen, where indigo was the predominant crop in the 1700s; later it was rice. Slaves did the field work and may have built the French Creole house, circa 1790, for Christophe and his wife, Charlotte Oubre. Christophe’s brother built Whitney Plantation next door.

The two raised houses were similar, with wide galleries and short wooden columnettes on the upper-floor balcony. The raised living area was one-room deep and three-rooms wide, called “en suite,” meaning no center hall. One walked onto the front or back porch to enter another room. Beneath the living area was an open space among the brick support columns. A brick “floor” was laid underneath the house over sand, which provided drainage for the seasonal flooding. Sometimes referred to as a West Indies design, the Heidel house was a striking salmon color, originating from the plaster used on the bricks.

Christophe’s daughter, Magdelaine Heidel Becnel, inherited the plantation when he and his wife died in 1799, about 140 years before Matilda would own it. There, Magdelaine raised her eight children and her young, orphaned grandson, Pierre Clidamant Becnel, whose parents died of yellow fever.

“In that day, it was customary to marry your cousins, and four of Magdelaine’s children married four Heidel first cousins who lived next door at Whitney,” says Jane Boddie, director of Evergreen.

The Becnel Plantation

Magdelaine died in 1830, at the amazing age of 75, and Clidamant Becnel bought out the other heirs to his grandmother’s home. He had a great interest in architecture and traveled to Philadelphia for a year to study Greek Revival design, introduced in the early 1800s by Englishman Benjamin Latrobe, who designed the U.S. Custom House in New Orleans.

The slave cabins remain today in their original double-row configuration.

Clidamant didn’t build his dream house. Instead, he reconstructed the ancestral family home, giving it a stunning Greek Revival exterior while retaining the French Creole interior floor plan. Boddie suggests he may have received advice from Samuel Hermann, who built the Hermann-Grima House in the French Quarter and was married to Clidamant’s Aunt Marie.

The contract with the builder, John Carter from St. Charles Parish, still exists. It called for enclosing the open basement and adding three rooms, raising the existing floor two feet and raising the roof 31 inches. There was to be the appearance of a terrace or balcony on the roof, and “two winding stairs of grace and elegance.” The contract also noted that Carter and his two assistants would receive “bed, board and washing during execution of the work.” Carter’s pay was $1,800 at the start of the job and the same amount at completion.

Clidamant was quite the recycler. He stipulated in the contract, “Do the work in such a way as to prevent a useless waste of materials.” Approximately 300,000 bricks from Uncle Sam Plantation (dismantled because the levee was being moved) were ferried across the river for use in the reconstruction.

In Ghosts Along the Mississippi, Clarence Laughlin describes the striking front façade. “A pedimented portico appears to receive the two fine free-standing staircases that curve through the air to the second floor.” That pedimented portico is a defining Greek Revival detail.

Richard Lewis in his Vestiges of Grandeur, calls the sweeping double stairway on a Greek Revival house “an unusual aspect.” Because of it, Sam Wilson suggests in Louisiana History (Winter 1990) that the designer of the Beauregard Keyes house, with its similar stairs, might have been Clidamant Becnel’s architect. But he says, “It may have been Becnel himself who drew the nine plans mentioned in the contract, which have not been found.”

John Latrobe (Benjamin’s son) wrote, “The climate in the South requires all the shade that can be procured, and to obtain it, the body of the building is surrounded by galleries.” The gallery is eight feet wide. Clidamant encircled his home on three sides with massive Doric columns of plastered brick.

Ever wondered how they made those round brick columns? “They used pie-shaped bricks,” explains Boddie. “We have one of the old molds. The columns were open in the center, first covered with lime plaster and then coated with lime wash, as we still do now.”

Standing on the gallery, one can glance at the 18-inch stuccoed brick walls, original from the 1790 French house, and see how they are scored to resemble stone. The porch floors are pine and contain an interesting detail, a bowtie-shaped piece of wood that appears to attach the planks to each other. This architectural detail is also used in the loggia in the rear, which Gray enclosed to provide more living area.
(Gray also re-did—her favorite word—the kitchen in the former butler’s pantry and put bathrooms in the upstairs cabinets (cabinays), which were small rooms at the rear corners used for bathing the children or the help.)

The Evergreen house seen today is the creation of Clidamant, including the six dependencies, ordered and symmetrical in their placement. The two garçonnières were for teenage sons who were banished from the main house and allowed to have guests in their private quarters. Lewis writes, “They provided a modicum of privacy for unmarried male members of the family.” The two pigionniers, with interesting round windows, were considered status symbols by the French and used for raising pigeons and squab, delicacies on the dining room table.

Immediately behind the big house, facing the parterre garden, was a separate building housing the kitchen and a building for the house slaves, who needed to be in proximity to their jobs—cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing and caring for the children and the sick.

The architectural “piece de resistance” was the Greek Revival privy with four seats, two on either side of a dividing wall. It holds center stage behind the mansion and is just a short walk through the garden. Two famous writers commented on the extraordinarily beautiful outhouse. Clarence Laughlin wrote, “It tells us so gracefully of the height achieved in the art of living by the plantation culture.” Richard Sexton gets more to the point, describing the privy as a “diminutive 19th century temple…to human hygiene.”

Evergreen today has an unusual combination carriage house/stable/milking barn, because architect Richard Koch joined several of these service buildings into one during Gray’s restoration. The old sugar house (mill) is gone, along with many of the other buildings that served the sugar cane factory. Plantations were, indeed, factories, and their purpose was to produce a cash crop on a massive scale for the international market.

View of one of the pigeonniers, which were used for raising pigeons and squab for the dinner table.

Before the Civil War, processing cane was a long, arduous and dangerous task that began by cutting it with a machete. Cane juice squeezed from the stalks was boiled in huge, open cast-iron kettles, which are re-used today as fountains in home gardens. Great progress was made in the vacuum-pan processing of cane by Norbert Rillieux, a scientist and free person of color from New Orleans, who spent years working in Paris. (He was a cousin of the famous Impressionist painter Edgar Degas.)  Rillieux’s invention was called one of the greatest in chemical engineering. Be that as it may, when he visited a plantation to introduce his invention to the planter, he could not stay in the big house, nor could he stay in the slave quarters. Special arrangements had to be made because of his mixed race; Rillieux was a quadroon, one-quarter black.

It is said there was a building for everything on a plantation, which, in reality, was a self-contained and self-sustaining village. The plantation store was the mall of its day, and several old stores exist up and down River Road. Steamboats and packets often docked right over the levee, bringing everything from guests that might stay for one month to fine dresses for the mistress of the house to machinery for the mill.

In redesigning the family home, Clidamant fell into bankruptcy in 1835. He no doubt filled the mansion with antiques from New York and Europe. He would have had to buy slaves, as they did not transfer with the land. Whatever the causes, he was forced to sell to his cousin, Lezin Becnel, who graciously allowed Clidamant and his wife, Desiree Brou, to continue to live in the house. When Clidamant died in 1854 without children, the house was bought back by Lezin and was owned by Becnels until it was sold in 1894 to the two Songy brothers. For 100 years, the place had been called The Becnel Plantation, but the Songys named it Evergreen.

The Songy Years

Four interesting stories have surfaced from the Songy era. Sternberg writes in Along the Mississippi that Evergreen may have had a ghost. A young teacher and frequent guest at the plantation died unexpectedly. Soon after, the piano began to play with no one seated at the keyboard.

Although the River Road planters founded a college at Manresa, the young people were often sent off to school. One young Songy prayed that something would happen so she wouldn’t have to go away to school. About that time, the Songys lost their home. Decades later, this elderly woman told Boddie that she still had regrets about what she did.

Another descendant, Sylvia Songy Davis (Alfred was her great-grandfather) says, “We always heard the buyers wanted all the family to live together.” That makes sense, because several residential buildings on the property date to the Songy era, including the one housing the Evergreen museum and ticket office. Davis also recalls that as a child, when guests were in town, her father would ask Matilda Gray if he could take them to see the house. “She always said yes. I think she understood the connection the family still had for Evergreen and felt empathy for them,” Davis says.

Amazingly, though the Songys lost the property in 1930, descendants of that family still manage and work the cane fields today. “It is leased to them, but I talk to the farmers every day,” says Boddie, whose other title is president of Evergreen.

Two Matildas

Matilda Geddings Gray died in 1971. She had no children, no nephews and only one niece—Matilda Gray Stream, her brother’s daughter, who was named after her.

And so enters the third woman to take the reins of Evergreen. Gray almost “adopted” her niece, doting on her from birth, says Boddie. “When she was born, Gray gave the parents of her heir an antique Biedermeier cradle, which is on display in an Evergreen cabinet.”

Gray groomed her namesake to one day manage and care for her many acquisitions, including the plantation and dozens of l’objets d’art. In her extensive collection, she had 59 rare and original pieces, including three of the famous Fabergé Eggs, from the House of Fabergé, which catered to the family of the Russian Czar. Pieces from Gray’s Fabergé collection are on display on a rotating basis at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Gray filled Evergreen with large portraits of Creoles painted in the mid-1800s. A “wide angle” portrait of Evergreen with all of its ancillary buildings by New Orleans artist Boyd Cruise hangs in a downstairs bedroom at the plantation.

For more than 40 years, Matilda Stream’s life has focused on the world that her aunt left her. Evergreen remained a private home for 60 years for the two Matildas until Stream opened it for tours in 1998.
Like her aunt, Stream is a world traveler and counts royalty as friends. Boddie says, “She is an ambassador for Louisiana and its culture. There is a mystique about Louisiana culture. They both took it with them wherever they moved.”

Evergreen Today

Today, Evergreen Plantation is an active archaeological site. A recent dig in the area of the slave cabins by a state archaeologist involved volunteers from St. John High School and also area citizens. Boddie wants “to involve the local community in the life of the plantation and its history.” A little museum is part of the plantation operation, with rooms dedicated to each era—the Heidels, Becnels, Songys and Gray/Stream.

“We are dependent on agriculture,” Boddie admits. “With 400 acres in cane production, I am always thinking of the weather in terms of the cane. We start planting in July and harvest through December. We never would have been here, nor be here today without cane.” She adds, “But we put the same piece of property to work in other ways, by leasing hunting rights and leasing the batture on the other side of the levee, which in front of Evergreen is the widest in this area.”

The movie industry is also a source of revenue. Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Django Unchained are two movies that were recently filmed at Evergreen. Tours are another slice of the economic pie.

It could be said there is a fourth woman guiding Evergreen through time and history, and that is Boddie, who has been at Stream’s side since she decorated the house in the late ’60s. “She asked if I could continue to work for her, and I said I could,” recalls Boddie, now more than 40 years later. “I run Evergreen for her. This place is my life.”

The post Evergreen Plantation appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

Porcelain tea set from the John Slidell family at the 1850 House.

Corralling the up- and down-river sides of Jackson Square, the Pontalba Buildings represent the culmination of one family’s public building spree that spanned two generations. Don Andres Almonester y Roxas and his daughter Micaela parlayed their talents as shrewd real estate investors and developers with a sincere sense of civic duty to become, for all practical purposes, solely responsible for the vision of the city we see today.

As noted in IN’s previous feature stories on the St. Louis Cathedral, Cabildo and Presbytere, Almonester donated a new church and the Presbytere, intended to serve as home for the city’s clergy, and provided financing for a new government building, the Cabildo, in the 1790s. Almonester’s goal was to help the city recover from the devastating fire of 1788. The three structures facing the river, on the Chartres St. side of the then Plaza de Armas, as the square was known in Almonester’s day during Spanish rule over Louisiana, became a welcoming sight to travelers at the end of their journey to the international seaport.

The land along the square’s side streets, St. Peter and St. Ann, was originally owned by the colonial government. Almonester persuaded the town fathers to give him the ownership of both blocks in return for his promise to improve and maintain the streets and sidewalks in front of the buildings—at his expense, of course.

The St. Peter and St Ann blocks presented a mixture of commercial buildings, shops and rooming houses. The rents collected from these buildings over the years, along with those from properties all over New Orleans that Almonester owned or had an interest in, provided a handsome income to his family after his death in 1798.

Architecturally speaking, those two city blocks were quite mundane and run-down, when, in 1849, Micaela Leonarda Antonia Almonester, Baroness de Pontalba, arrived for her last visit to the city of her birth. Before her departure in 1851, she revitalized the old square by enveloping it with her vision of Parisian elegance. In what was becoming more and more an American city, the Baroness also spearheaded an effort to name the square “Jackson Square” and transform it from a military parade ground to a formal garden.

The Lower Pontalba Building at St. Ann and Chartres streets.

An Extraordinary Life

The Baroness’ life story, literally the stuff of legends, has inspired plays, operas and novels. Her biography, written by Christina Vella and appropriately entitled Intimate Enemies, tells the tale in astonishing detail.

Young ladies who dream of a fairytale life—of marrying a handsome nobleman and being swept away to a Disney-esque castle in the French countryside—might want to learn from Micaela’s story and think again.

Micaela had just such a fairytale beginning. At the age of 15, on Oct. 23, 1811, she married Célestin Delfau de Pontalba in the most Creole of weddings in St. Louis Cathedral, which her father had built a decade before. Attended by the cream of Creole society, the ceremony was performed by Père Antoine, and the bride was given away by Bernard de Marigny.

Micaela and Célestin arrived at his family’s chateau, Mont-l’Évêque, near Senlis, France (about 50 miles east of Paris), in July 1812. She and Célestin had a relatively happy marriage, having four sons and a daughter together over the years. But, rather than an evil stepmother shattering this fairytale’s pleasant plot, it was her father-in-law who guaranteed that an atmosphere of misery and despair would surround Micaela until the day of his death.

It was all about money. As with many marriages between noble families, the union of Micaela and Célestin was developed more as a business transaction than a love affair. Micaela had inherited a tidy fortune from her father, and, as the only surviving child, she was also set to come into even greater wealth upon her mother’s death.

Célestin’s father, Baron Joseph Delfau de Pontalba, was never satisfied with the dowry. Although Micaela had agreed to turn over one-quarter of her inheritance to the Pontalba family, he would not rest until the remainder of her fortune, and that of her mother, who died in 1825, became his. Wives had few property rights in early 19th century France, and for years, the Baron attacked his daughter-in-law’s estate through the courts in both Louisiana and France.

It all ended when, on a fall day in 1834, the Baron confronted Micaela. She was suing for a legal separation from Célestin and was living in one of the many properties in Paris she inherited from her mother. Micaela was visiting the chateau when the Baron, wielding an elegantly matched pair of dueling pistols, shot her four times. It is reported that she screamed, “Don’t! I’ll give you everything!” after the first shot. He is said to have replied, “No, you are going to die,” before shooting her again and again and again. He then locked himself in his study and, after several hours alone there, committed suicide, shooting himself twice in the chest with the same pistols.

The elegant staircase in the 1850 House is a design found throughout the Pontalba Buildings.

Micaela miraculously recovered, although one hand and her chest suffered disfiguring wounds, and she continued for years to fight for her separation and control over her estate. She did build a spectacular home in Paris after the tragedy, the Hôtel de Pontalba, which today is the official residence of the U.S. Ambassador to France. She was personally involved in all aspects of building the mansion, experiences she took with her to New Orleans in 1849 when she began revitalizing her properties on the old Plaza de Armas.

Revisiting and Revitalizing

The French political climate became increasingly restless leading up to the Third French Revolution. In 1848, Micaela (now the Baroness de Pontalba) made plans to return to New Orleans. Part of her plan was to deal with diminishing rents from deadbeat tenants living in the decaying structures that comprised her properties.

When she and her sons Alfred and Gaston arrived in 1849, she was armed with a full set of set of architectural drawings, which she intended to see realized as soon as was practicable. First, there was a matter of getting some concessions from the city. She asked the city for tax incentives, a common practice for developers today and, it turns out, not uncommon back in her day, either. She negotiated a 20-year waiver for paying property taxes for the apartments.

Within a year, the buildings were completed. Micaela supervised the construction and acted as her own vigilant general contractor, often fighting with the builder over materials and costs. Her use of visually appealing lacy decorative wrought iron railings set the style for balconies throughout the French Quarter. Famously, the railings feature the intertwined letters “A” and “P” signifying the two families, Almonester and Pontalba, who were so responsible for the face New Orleans presents to the world.

Her dual-use buildings anticipated “new urbanism” design by a century. Each building had 12 commercial spaces on the first floor and 23 apartments on the second and third floors. They quickly became the most fashionable and desirable rental properties in the city. The Baroness and her sons promptly moved into No. 5 St. Peter St., in the up-river or, as it’s known today, “Upper Pontalba” building.

The matching red-brick buildings faced each other across the square, soon to be re-named Jackson Square after much influence by the Baroness. She also provided some of the funding for Jackson’s planned monument in the center of the square, for which Old Hickory himself had laid the cornerstone in 1840 in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans. Micaela fought with the Creole politicians over its landscaping. She prevailed, of course, and a double-row of trees that blocked the view of her new buildings was removed and the paved circular walkways we see today were put in.

Cast iron balcony railing featuring the intertwined “A” and “P” monogram.

The Baroness took advantage of a celebrity visit to garner a tremendous amount of buzz for her investment. When Jenny Lind, “the Swedish Nightingale,” visited New Orleans, she was the guest of the Pontalbas, who gave the singer use of one of the apartments during her one-month stay. The Baroness then auctioned off all of the furniture and household items Lind had used. Not long after, the family traveled back to France in 1851, and Micaela never visited New Orleans again. She died in 1874.

The 1850 House

The Pontalba Buildings have stood since their completion, although they themselves eventually became old and unfashionable, faded in their grandeur. Passing out of the Pontalba family in the early 20th century, the Lower Pontalba is now owned by the Louisiana State Museum and the Upper by the City of New Orleans.

The State Museum maintains its visitor’s welcome center and gift shop at 523 St. Ann. The 1850 House consists of the apartments above the shop, which have been preserved and furnished to reflect Creole life during the 1850s.

The first piano sold by Werlein’s in New Orleans in the 1850 House parlor.

Before the renumbering of the city’s addresses during the 1890s, the address of the 1850 House was No. 8 St. Ann. A few different families were known to have occupied the apartments. While the individual furnishings on display did not belong to the occupants, Tony Lewis, Ph.D., curator of visual arts, says, “The effort was to make sure that everything would be consistent with what would have been here in 1850.”

“We’ve researched similar locations, and everything here dates from the 1830s to the 1870s. You wouldn’t necessarily start with things bought in 1850, because people kept things,” adds Katie Hall Burlison, curator of decorative arts. She notes the arrangement of the living quarters roughly corresponds to the way the Cammacks lived, from 1853-1856. Amelia Cammack was a widow living with her son and four daughters.

Lewis paints a picture of what life would have been like for merchants, such as the Soria family, and for the banker and railroad president William G. Hewes, who also resided at No. 8 St. Ann during this time period. He says, “Most of the merchant and bankers likely had their offices over on Canal St. Every day, they’d get up and take their constitutional walk up to the office. I think that was the Baroness’ whole vision … to anchor the city’s revitalization. To make it a modern city, attract the most modern and up-to-date merchants.”

Royal St. was the most fashionable shopping district and home to many of the city’s wealthiest citizens. “Just as in Paris, the walk up Royal St. was characterized by a sort of fashion show; you took your time, you saw your friends and said hello,” Lewis says.

Visitors ascending the charming staircase from the ground floor shop to the 1850 House first view the formal dining room, with its grand table setting under a large, elaborately decorated gasolier, evidence of the Baroness’ wish for the most modern of conveniences. “The difference between it and a chandelier is that the chandelier would have been lit by candles. You can see the little knobs [on the gasolier] to turn on the gas to each light. This building was fitted out with gas lines when it was built,” says Burlison. “That definitely represented something very modern.”

Of special note in the dining room is a porcelain tea set that belonged to John Slidell. While typical of the china sold on Royal St., the gilt monogram “S” on each piece is indicative of a custom order, says Burlison. “A lot of things that were sold on Royal St. or Chartres St. were sent over from France. Many advertisements from shops of this time period boast of ‘the best in European fabrics’ or ‘the best European furniture.’”

When not attending the opera, theatre or balls, the Creoles spent their evenings calling on their peers, perhaps for coffee and sweets, conversation, some music or a game of cards. The 1850 House parlor reflects this. “You have these separate areas for entertainment and activities,” says Lewis.

Near the front of the parlor, Burlison notes, “Here is an area for musical entertainment with the harp and piano.” She points out an elaborately carved piano and says, “It’s called a ‘cocked-hat’ grand piano, which refers to the way the strings are arranged inside.” (The piano was made by Timothy Gilbert of Boston and is reputed to be the first piano sold by Werlein’s in New Orleans, in the 1840s. The music store would become part of life for generations of New Orleanians, with the last Werlein’s location closing in 2000.)

Paintings are Lewis’ forte, and the dining room and formal parlor walls of the 1850 House display a mixture of decorative landscapes and the finest examples of Creole portraiture. Artists Jacques Amans and Jean Joseph Vaudechamp were the premier portrait painters of Creole New Orleans. Having a portrait done meant you had arrived. “Vaudechamp supposedly made $30,000 his first year painting here,” says Lewis. This was quite a fortune at the time. “Amans, a French neoclassical artist trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, came to New Orleans and painted as much as he could until he made enough money that he could buy himself a plantation.”

Vaudechamp’s portraits of Edouard Forstall and his wife and Amans’ painting of Gabriel Montegue overlook a room furnished in a variety of styles. The 1850s were a period of revivals—Rococo, Gothic and Classical—and each is represented in period pieces from the most prestigious of New Orleans furniture suppliers, the firms of J. and J.W. Meeks and William McCracken among them. An upstairs bedroom is furnished with a six-piece set of armoires, dressers and half-tester bed attributed to Prudent Mallard’s shop. Mallard’s furniture is perhaps most identifiable with ante- and post-bellum Louisiana homes.

The Past is Present on Jackson Square

The Baroness’ architectural and monumental legacies and those of her father, Don Almonester—whether born of crass commercialism or pure philanthropy—have defined New Orleans’ visual character for over two centuries. With care, they will remain its heart, soul and crown jewels for generations to come. A and P, we salute you!

For the unabridged story of the Baroness’ dramatic life, as well as a thorough history of colonial and early 19th century New Orleans, Intimate Enemies by Christine Vella is a must-read and was an indispensible resource for this article. You can visit the 1850 House at 523 St. Ann St. in New Orleans, Tues. through Sun., 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. or call (504) 568-6968 for more information.

Caroling in Jackson Square

For 66 years, crowds have flocked to Jackson Square to celebrate the holidays with shimmering candles and a hearty round of Christmas carols under the bedecked balconies of the Pontalba Buildings.

Caroling in Jackson Square is sponsored by the Patio Planters du Vieux Carré, a volunteer organization of French Quarter residents and property owners. Member Julie Hunt-Juneau says, “It’s a great event and lots of fun. Many families come year after year. We usually have local celebrities participate; for years, Archbishop Hannan led the crowd in singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Now they pick children from the crowd to come on stage and lead it.”

Volunteers, including local musicians, make it all happen, but to keep the event free, Patio Planters holds two fundraisers: a courtyard tour in October, Secret Gardens of the Vieux Carré; and a white elephant and auction sale. “Hotels, artists, galleries and other French Quarter businesses donate items for the sale,” says Julie. The fundraisers pay for the candles, the keepsake songbooks that are given to each participant and clean-up.

The group’s white elephant sale and auction will be held Saturday, November 10, at 10 a.m. at the corner of Royal and St. Phillip streets.

Caroling in Jackson Square will take place Sunday, December 16. Gates will open at 6:30 p.m. Participants are encouraged to come early if their children would like to help lead the crowd in singing Rudolph.

Visit patioplanters.org for more information.

The post The Pontalba Legacy appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

The Mandeville site is long remembered as the home of Bechac’s, a family-owned and -operated restaurant that occupied the space for more than a century. “It was the Commander’s Palace of the northshore,” says Lakehouse owner Cayman Sinclair. “I ate here as a boy. We used to come for the fried chicken and soft-shelled crabs.”

Cayman Sinclair at the Lakehouse.

Born in New Orleans, Sinclair came to the northshore with his family in 1965. After college, he worked at The Dakota Restaurant in Covington until he opened Louisiana Grill with his brothers. In 2009, Sinclair left Louisiana Grill, leased the stately old lakefront property and began the realization of his dream to cater special events.

“I had always wanted this building to do events,” says Sinclair. “We were really successful with parties, and then the spill happened.” A 2008 FEMA contract in the wake of a Texas hurricane launched Sinclair’s off-site catering service. This experience with disaster relief landed him a contract with BP and the U.S. Environmental Group to make 1,200 meals a day for seven months at staging and cleaning sites from as close as Fort Pike to the Mississippi border.

The resulting surplus of catering equipment and fleet in the wake of the disaster led Sinclair to take on catering projects for the growing Hollywood presence in Louisiana. “Feeding a film crew is much more challenging,” he says with a laugh. “We’ve learned a lot about food from the experience. They have specific ideas and concepts that they bring here from California.” The result has been more local sourcing of vegetables, chicken and soon, beef, for the restaurant, in addition to a number of new dishes on the menu. “The Pork and Portobello Cannelloni and the Roasted Butternut Squash with Orzo Pasta and Gruyere Cheese have been really popular,” says Sinclair. The fall menu will include Mulligatawny Soup, which both Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley especially liked.

For now, you can look forward to enjoying the view in the cool fall weather. A newly-expanded patio and outdoor seating section will re-open in October, including a new oyster grill. Stay tuned for more infromation about the upcoming party season.

Call ahead for hours of availability. The Lakehouse is open for special events. Reservations are recommended; call (985) 626-3006. For special events, call (985) 807-5014. Visit the Lakehouse’s Facebook page or lakehousecuisine.com.

The post Last Bite with Cayman Sinclair appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

On Aug. 20, 2005, just days before Hurricane Katrina, a second phase of Tchefuncta began, along with plans to build a new clubhouse. Charlie Barnett, Brian Storm, Ricky Thomas, Jim Harp and Brian Pellissier put together a package to buy 167 acres from the Slaughter family. The new phase has the security of the Tchefuncta neighborhood, three new golf holes and 124 home sites, all with beautiful views.

Charlie Barnett was the first to complete his house and move in as part of Phase 2. At the same time, the new clubhouse was under construction. Architect George Hopkins was the architect on both projects.

Charlie was very hands-on in the building of his house, which is a combination of old and new elements. He found an old church, c1840, in Bogalusa that was originally built by the Goodyear family. All the wood for the new house came from this church. Charlie crawled up and down the house, determining if and how he could use the cypress beams, floor boards, rafters and joists. The floor joists were so thick he had them milled to make two boards out of one. “Back in those days, 2 x 10s were 2½ inches thick and over 10 inches wide,” says Charlie. “The underside was left rough.”

The bricks were procured from a World

War I parachute factory in Columbia, Miss. “When you look closely, you can see a purplish hue (patina) to the bricks, which tells us they were made in Slidell at the Chamale Brickyard around 1870,” says Charlie. All of the bricks, both inside and out, are from the factory. “I hand selected the queen-sized bricks instead of the purple patina for the inside to be able to use a creamier color.” The stucco on the house was left the original, un-tinted color to age outside and retain its cream color inside.

Time-worn European antiques and classic antique oriental rugs fill every room, but because Charlie and his wife, Mary, have four children between them and always entertain lots of guests for football games, these spaces must be comfortable. In the entrance, a marble-topped burled chest, c1860, beneath a gilded mirror holds two gold-leaf candlestick lamps with stenciled brown silk shades and an antique marble clock. Two Empire pedestals are topped with bronze urns. An antique Hamadan rug lies on the brick floor.

Charlie and Mary Barnett’s Tchefuncta Club Estates home.

Huge cypress beams run across the 12-foot-high ceiling in the main living areas, making a big impact. In the dining room, a Welsh dresser, c1840, is filled with antique pewter plates and antique china. A French buffet holds two contemporary glass-and-bronze lamps. Charlie could not find an antique table to seat his many guests, so the expandable walnut table is from EMB Interiors. Surrounding the table are chairs upholstered in a floral-patterned chenille. Moss-green leather armchairs sit at either end. The room is anchored by a semi-antique Heriz rug. Two monumental stone pillars create a divide between the living and dining areas, while still leaving an open feeling.

The wine cellar is every oenophile’s dream—just large enough to hold 600 bottles of red wine, with a wine cooler for white wines. An antique Kazak oriental runner covers the brick floor.

On a near wall between the living and dining rooms is a bibliotheca, which houses books behind its wire mesh doors. On top is a collection of antique pewter wine stoppers, a cut-glass wine bucket filled with corks and a collection of vintage vintners’ tasting cups. A Michalopoulos painting hangs above. On the floor stands an iron Boston bulldog.

The living room’s view of the new golf course creates an expansive horizon that does not call for window coverings. The seating area is centered on a large brick fireplace with a pecky cypress mantel. Comfortable chairs upholstered in velvet and a moss-green sofa make a cozy area. An antique hand-carved duck sits on an antique chest of burled yew beneath another Michalopoulos painting.

The kitchen cabinets are cypress with oiled bronze hardware and granite countertops in Absolute Black and Tropical Brown. A mosaic of elongated sandstone tiles forms the backsplash. A Wolf gas stove sits beneath a custom stucco vent hood. The refrigerator sports custom-designed panels in cypress. Two topiaries and an antique dough bowl are on the bar. “We entertain a lot, and this house is perfect for guests,” says Mary.

Charlie’s “man cave” holds several trophies from his many safaris in Africa. Audubon prints hang above an antique English chest. A tufted leather Lancaster chair, two upholstered French arm chairs and a sofa with Kilim throw pillows make for a cozy retreat.

The rear entrance to the house is paneled in pecky cypress on the walls and up the staircase. In the alcove next to the stairs, a blue wildebeest trophy hangs above a leather-and-copper-framed mirror. Beneath the console table is a Plexiglas box with mounted Chinese wood ducks. An antique Kazak runner covers the floor. Up the cypress stairs, an iron railing leads to a grouping of Gould and Gould prints hanging at the stair landing. Two bedrooms on the second floor are for Charlie and Mary’s college-aged children.

Leading into the master bedroom is a small library with a French chair, upholstered in a tapestry fabric and painted glazed cabinets, which hold books and carnival memorabilia. A Garland Robinette portrait and a Robert Cook landscape hang in the room. A zebra rug, shot by Charlie, lies on the antique cypress floor.

The master bedroom showcases a king-size bed in carved walnut, reminiscent of the Mallard beds that were so popular in the early 1800s. Two small chests with gold-leaf lamps flank the bed, which is covered in sage-green chenille accented with a rust-and-copper pillow. The kudu-hide pillow is also from Charlie’s trip to Africa. A walnut writing desk sits beneath the shuttered windows. At the end of the bed is a richly textured tribal antique Sarouk rug made of camel hair.

“Charlie and I got married recently,” says Mary. “My friends have asked what I would change in the house, and I say nothing at all. Charlie put it all together, and it reflects who he is—and that is wonderful.”

The post Design: Old and New appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

But one thing we do know is that once made, his choice stuck. As the area right in the middle of the bend that became New Orleans was cleared, fortune-seeking colonists of all professions arrived. Back then, being French meant being Catholic, and the Catholic Mass was first celebrated outdoors or in tents and then in a warehouse on Toulouse Street near the river. In 1720, the parish of St. Louis was established, and in 1724, construction began on the first church building erected where the Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis, King of France, now stands as the jewel of the French Quarter.

A Famous Face

Nearly three centuries after Bienville, Mass is still being said in St. Louis Cathedral, now one of the most recognizable landmarks in the world. “It is the only cathedral in the world that is a symbol of a city. Almost everything you see, even in abstract, relating to the city of New Orleans, has the triple spires,” says Monsignor Crosby Kern of the church’s familiar silhouette. Kern is the Cathedral’s rector; he jokingly wishes its image would generate licensing revenue. “I wish I had a penny for every time they use it in advertisements. Just a penny!”

The Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis, King of France.

Although he can speak with a light-hearted air, Kern takes his job very seriously and conveys the sense that he is very aware of the weight of the church’s history and of his responsibilities. “When you’re rector here, you’re not only pastor of a parish, but you’re sort of a curator of a living museum,” observes Kern. “The old Ursuline Convent a few blocks away, part of the complex of this parish, is the oldest building in the Mississippi Valley. You have to take care of these things; you live and work with the history.”

There are probably only a few, if any, people who have a deeper connection to the Cathedral than Kern. “My own ancestors have been here since the beginning of the city. In the marriage records from the 1720s, my 10-times-great-grandparents were married here in 1728. Later on, other ancestors were married by Père Antoine in the Cathedral. Here I am, the rector looking at that, and it’s really humbling,” Kern says, as he launches into a brief history of the church.

“The present building is the third rendition on the site, but it incorporates parts of all the other buildings. Remember, the city was founded in 1718. St. Louis was made a parish in 1720. We know there was Mass going on before that, but in 1720, it was firmly established as a parish.”

Kern notes that the first church was completed by 1727. He says it was “a rather substantial building that lasted until the great fire of 1788, when it burned to the ground. Rebuilding took until 1793, when it reopened as a cathedral, and it was a larger building.” Don Andres Almonester y Roxas, who financed the building of the Cabildo, also donated the funds to rebuild the Cathedral and the Presbytere.

The monsignor explains that the church was designated a cathedral upon reopening because it had become the seat of the newly created Diocese of Louisiana and the Floridas, and its first bishop, named Peñelvar, was installed. (That it is home of the bishop’s chair, the cathedra in Latin, makes a church a cathedral, not its size).

“The foundations of part of the first building were part of the foundation of the new Cathedral, which [later] went through some variations,” Kern continues. “There were originally two steeples, then a third was added and they were rounded, more in the Spanish style.”

The iconic face of the Cathedral today is a design that has lasted since 1851. Kern says that by the 1840s, the 1793 building was in disrepair and was too small to hold a still-growing congregation. Another consideration for remodeling the Cathedral was aesthetic; the Cabildo and Presbytere had been increased in height with the additions of their third floors and mansard roofs, and the Cathedral appeared shorter and no longer to scale in comparison.

First used in 1819, the large bell called Victoire, in honor of the victory at the Battle of New Orleans, rings each hour; the smaller bells, from 1851, ring the quarter-hours.

French architect J.N.B. de Pouilly designed the new building with its three spires, a lengthened nave and a taller façade that incorporates the lower part of the 1793 building. The new Cathedral was consecrated in December 1851.

Kern says that de Pouilly’s first plan called for a radical departure that would have changed the city forever. “What they were going to do was tear the whole thing down and build back at the other end of Orleans Street where the Municipal Auditorium is. Orleans was the street in those days, so the Cathedral would have been there with a grand avenue leading to the river. But the people wanted their church and wanted to add on and rebuild where we are now.”

Luckily, the city planners prevailed and nixed de Pouilly’s plan. The iconic view from the river toward the Cathedral, flanked by the Presbytere, Cabildo and Pontalba buildings, has been unchanged ever since the addition of Andrew Jackson’s statue to the public square in 1855.

A Neighborhood Church

“This is a wonderful neighborhood,” notes Kern. “Besides the tourist attractions, people live here in the French Quarter, people who contribute greatly to the community.” Although he likens himself to a curator of a museum, Kern is leader of a parish populated by what may be one of the most eclectic flocks anywhere in the world.

“It’s a living house of prayer,” he says. “We celebrate the sacraments here. I say we are a living museum, in the sense that it’s a witness to history, but primarily it’s a house of prayer. People of all faiths come here. People are here at Mass; they’re here to worship. That’s always been part of this place. Since 1718, when the city was founded, Mass has been said on this site. People were coming here as men and women of faith. It humbles a person to sit there and understand that.”

Almonester’s tomb, as well as those of many other of the city’s civic and religious leaders, is located in the Cathedral.

As a working church in the middle of what seems, at times, a Disney-esque setting, St. Louis Cathedral has seen a regular procession of weddings over the centuries. As mother church of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, which covers the entire state, Kern says every Catholic in Louisiana has the right to be married in the Cathedral. How many people have exercised that right? He doesn’t care to guess. “We have two or three weddings a weekend, every week. That’s been going on for ever and ever and ever, which is important,” he says.

Baptisms are another rite of passage in the life of Catholics. The baptismal font at the Cathedral, one of its oldest artifacts, is believed to date back to Almonester’s cathedral, which was dedicated in 1793. Thousands of babies have been christened in it, from slaves and mayors to saints and voodoo queens.

Of course, thousands of funerals have been performed in the Cathedral as well, with many of the city’s earliest leaders buried beneath the church, including Almonester and Pierre Marigny, the father of Mandeville’s Bernard Marigny. (Bernard is buried in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1.) Twelve bishops and archbishops have their resting place in the Cathedral around the altar. Most recently, the very beloved Archbishop Phillip Hannan, who retired to the northshore and died in 2011, was laid to rest at the side of the altar. Marble tablets installed along the walls of the church memorialize the bishops who have served and are interred there.

The port city of New Orleans’ phenomenal growth in the early 1800s is reflected in the Cathedral’s baptismal and funeral registries from 1820. In addition to natives of New Orleans, the registries list persons from 35 different countries, 12 states and Washington, D.C., who came to New Orleans and either died or gave birth there.

While the Cathedral’s image was worked into the New Orleans Saints championship ring design, real saints—not the NFL variety, but those who have been venerated or beatified by the Roman Catholic Church—have worshiped here, Kern says. “St. Francis Cabrini, Blessed Seelos, St. Catherine Drexel, Mother Henriette DeLille (whose cause is up before the Church) and Blessed John Paul II have been here. So it’s been a place of saints.”

Saints have worshiped in the Cathedral, but sinners, too, seek out the church, two blocks from infamous Bourbon Street. “We come here as sinners to seek God’s love and forgiveness and to live his forgiveness as part of our faith. It’s a marvelous and wonderful paradox, almost,” says Kern.

The Cathedral’s Symbolism

St. Louis Cathedral is an important symbol of an entire city. As the center of faith for a neighborhood and mother church of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, it has its own symbols that signify various tenets of the Catholic faith.

Immediately noticeable are the double-barred crosses on the steeples’ roofs, which indicate that the Cathedral is a metropolitan church. “Well, yes, it’s a big city,” one might think. However, the term “metropolitan” has a specific meaning in the Church; it is the home of an archdiocese. The double-barred cross is found inside the Cathedral as well, over the bishop’s chair, and, as Kern points out, “The processional cross on the left side of the altar as you are looking at it is a double-barred cross. It belonged to the first archbishop, Antoine Blanc, and has been used by every archbishop here since 1850.”

Inside, the Cathedral’s display of flags catches the eye, as do the stained-glass windows and the murals covering the ceiling and walls above the choir loft and altar. All carry their own religious messages. The large mural above the altar, painted by Erasme Humbrecht in 1872, shows King Louis IX announcing the Seventh Crusade.

While the murals draw the eye skyward, the stained-glass windows in the outer walls dominate the Cathedral during the day. The panels depict scenes from the life of St. Louis, King of France, the only French monarch beatified by the Church. Louis IX reigned from 1226 to 1270 and was canonized in 1297. St. Louis is the patron saint of architects; one of the windows depicts him working on plans for La Sainte-Chapelle, a major Parisian landmark that he built to house his collection of relics. One of those relics is a portion of the crown of thorns, and his statue standing in the rear of St. Louis Cathedral, like many statues of St. Louis, depicts him bearing a crown of thorns atop a pillow.

Other window panels show his coronation; his role as crusader (he led two crusades); his work as a healer, administering to lepers; his death; and, in the final panel, the pope discussing his canonization.

In 1964, Pope Paul VI elevated St. Louis Cathedral to the status of Minor Basilica. An honorary title, it comes with its own symbolism. The designation recognizes a church’s importance in history and to the region where it’s located. Kern explains, “It becomes, in a sense, a papal church attached to one of the major basilicas in Rome. Ours is attached to St. Mary Major. Certain privileges that are attached to the major basilica are attached to this as well. You might notice there are symbols on either side of the Cathedral, two glass display cases, one with an umbrella and one with a bell on the end of a pole. Those go back to antiquity as well, symbolizing the pope when he comes.”

Of the papal visit by John Paul II in 1987, Kern says, “He’s been by far the most important visitor ever to the Cathedral—and we’ve had kings and emperors, prime ministers and presidents. You name it, the high and the low.”

New Orleans’ Center

Physically and spiritually, the Cathedral has always been at the center of New Orleans. As Kern says, “In triumph and in tragedy, people from the beginning have come to the Cathedral. It is a point of faith. After the Battle of New Orleans, Andrew Jackson brought everyone here to sing a praise of thanksgiving. Zachary Taylor, after the Battle of Buena Vista in the Mexican War, came to the Cathedral in New Orleans.

After hurricanes, this was a rallying point. After Katrina, the city was devastated. One of the first things that happened was a public Mass about a month after Katrina, as soon as we could get everything together.”

Citizens of all faiths come to the Cathedral during the Christmas holidays with caroling in the church and in Jackson Square. Each year the Cathedral also serves as the venue for a free concert held by the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and the Historic New Orleans Collection.

Kern reflects further on his tenure as rector at the jewel in the center of New Orleans. “It’s been the neatest thing to be part of it all during my time here,” he says. “I’ve hosted a president, a prime minister, Prince Charles, the inauguration of mayors, the installation of new archbishops, the death of an old archbishop—all of these things happened—so it’s been a privilege to be able to be here to witness these expressions of faith and realize that you are looking at history as it happens.”

The Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis, King of France, has stood for generations—a tourist attraction, a neighborhood church, a gathering place, a living museum and a burial ground; a place of joy and sadness, a place to give thanks, seek solace and above all, to find redemption.

As to its future, Monsignor Kern says, “So we stay here, despite all of the problems, despite some of the seedier things. We are going to stay, as we always have been, as an anchor of faith, the anchor of hope, life and the fulfillment of life. It’s much more than what you get from Bourbon Street, and we hope we’re the symbol of that.”

To learn more about the Cathedral, visit stlouiscathedral.org. The books Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis, King of France, by Charles E. Nolan (available in the Cathedral gift shop) and The Basilica on Jackson Square: the history of the St. Louis Cathedral by Leonard V. Huber and Samuel Wilson, Jr. (available at online booksellers) were invaluable resources in producing this article.

The post St. Louis Cathedral: The Jewel of the French Quarter appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

After years of admiring the house, she wanted to buy it. “It’s funny,” says Eva, “but the unusual coppery color of the roof tiles is what first attracted me.” She caught the seller in just the right mood, and soon the beautiful Mediterranean-style home in Slidell’s Lakeshore Estates was hers.

Coastal chic: Eva Trader’s Slidell home.

With the addition of two bedrooms and a new bath, the now-10,000-square-foot home was ready for Eva’s family of eight to move in. Her sophisticated style, paired with coastal elements, can be found in each room. A subdued palette of sand, cream and taupe runs throughout and lends a peaceful ambiance to the house.

With six children coming and going, the two-story entrance is in a constant whirlwind of activities. The grand space is punctuated at the front by tall arched windows fitted with iron scrollwork, an accent repeated in other spaces. The black high-gloss player piano is nestled in the curve of the main staircase, highlighted by three oversized cream-colored candlesticks. The primary hues of the jazz painting above the piano add a splash of color to the otherwise subtle palette. An iron-and-wood balustrade ascends the tile staircase to the second floor. On the opposite wall, two white upholstered chairs and a small three-legged table sit in front of a marble fireplace. A 36-inch plaster angel is in a niche above the fireplace in front of an arched mirror. From the foyer, one has a view of the pool, patio and boat dock beyond. Huge bronze sliding doors framed by copper-colored silk draperies open onto the pool area, allowing gentle breezes to blow off the water. The 18-inch-square porcelain tile runs throughout the house. An antique Oushak rug in copper, sage and cream anchors the floor.

The two-story entrance holds a high-gloss baby-grand player piano, which plays as the family comes and goes throughout their busy day.

The kitchen is large and well-placed in the home, with a spacious linear island for seating and serving on the front edge. Six barstools in a Louis XVI style are painted in a distressed white finish. An octagonal-shaped island on the interior is very functional, as well. Black Emerald Pearl granite tops maple cabinets with antique brass hardware. Three petit white chandeliers with tiny crystals hang over the center island. A mocha wire epergne holds fresh fruit for the many guests to help themselves.

The main living room is just off the kitchen and holds an oversized white slipcovered sofa and four slipcovered chairs, two in white linen and two in a taupe-with-white crewel fabric. Faced with the same black granite, the fireplace has a multitude of smaller cubbies and antique-cypress cabinet doors, making an interesting fireplace surround that holds family pictures and other objets d’art. In front of the fireplace, a huge wooden candelabrum holds pillar candles. The cocktail table is carved and distressed gold-leafed wood with a travertine top. A white hewn wooden angel, standing over 8 feet tall, is in one corner; the angel theme is repeated in a painting by Covington artist Gretchen Armbruster.

Two white upholstered French-style chairs sit in front of a fireplace niche, complete with an arched mirror and a large plaster angel.

The scroll iron window inserts are custom made. Two Caribbean Palm ceiling fans cool the large room. Eva’s desk is a carved and distressed mirrored piece from Tara Shaw; the desk chair is upholstered in burnished glazed alligator. A distressed driftwood-colored trumeau mirror hangs above a creamy white iron-and-concrete sideboard. On the console is a glass-and-gilt relic box dating back to the 18th century. Beside it, a large vase holds driftwood-colored curly willow.

The second living room is also spacious, with a slipcovered sectional and chairs and matching Caribbean fans. A corner bar with a granite countertop provides a place to entertain guests. The cocktail table holds an oversized clam shell, adding to the oceanic theme. A 4-foot-tall Betty Boop statue anchors a corner and catches the eye. “The children bought that for me for Christmas a couple of years ago,” says Eva. “They hid it under the palm trees outside with a camouflage blanket for weeks. I never saw it.” A mottled white trunk is embellished with silver studs and used as a table in front of another small slipcovered sofa. With six children and their friends hanging out watching television, seating is very important. “One of the things I love most is that these slipcovers are very washable,” says Eva knowingly. A large china cabinet in distressed white holds her collection of cream-colored Italian stoneware.

The master bedroom is a study in tranquility. The walls are painted a deep sand color. The king-sized bed, with its highly carved and gilded headboard, is dressed in Bella Notte linens. A nude by Phil Galatas hangs on the far wall next to a Louis XV-style armoire from British Traditions, which holds Eva’s handbags and accessories. Under the Galatas painting sit two contemporary chairs, also upholstered in white linen. The Louis XV settee at the end of the bed is upholstered in white linen to match the round ottoman. The end tables are painted Louis XV-style and hold tall carved wooden lamps with burlap shades. The rug is another antique Oushak.

The guest room is high fashion with a black-and-cream color palette that creates a very sophisticated look. Black-and-white portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn hang above mirrored bedside tables, while a black contemporary lamp adds drama. An antique mirrored headboard with a carved shell motif brings a bit of the coastal element to this room. The contemporary custom-made makeup dresser with a Louis XV fauteuil upholstered in white ostrich completes the very refined look.

Eva’s 9-year-old daughter helped to create her own special sanctuary. Pink and white with a touch of chartreuse make it a little girl’s dream. The fabric canopy crown piped in hot pink and gauze curtains frame the ornate white carved headboard. The bed covers include a pin-tucked hot pink throw, a duvet and bed skirt in gauzy white linen and pink-monogrammed white Euro pillows. Off-white mirrored end tables flank the bed and are topped with contemporary lamps with hot pink shades. An antique dressing table and mirror are painted white. A tiny pink and white chandelier hangs in the corner. An antique dress form complete with a pink tutu says “little princess.”

Although this house is grand in scale, Eva’s touch and sense of family make it feel intimate and cozy.

The post Design: Coastal Chic appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

Louisiana Roots

The house was once home to the New Orleans branch of French artist Degas’ family, the Mussons, one of the most well regarded of New Orleans’ Creole families. (While “Creole” has taken on many meanings, here it refers to descendants of French or Spanish colonial subjects born in the Americas.)

Degas’ mother, Célestine Musson, and her brother Michel were born in New Orleans but were sent to France to be educated when young. Célestine married Auguste De Gas and remained in France, while Michel returned to New Orleans after completing his studies. (Auguste changed their name from Degas to De Gas, but Edgar re-adopted “Degas” later in life).

Detail of Degas' "Woman Seated on a Balcony," portrait of Mathilde Bell.

Michel became a very wealthy cotton and silver merchant in the 1820s. As a businessman, he had dealt favorably with both the old Creole guard and the American businessmen who had begun arriving in the city after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. He had even built a grand home in the Garden District, or, as it was known, “the American Sector,” one of the first Creoles to do so.

During the Yankee occupation of New Orleans in the Civil War, Michel sent his wife, Odile, and daughters Désirée and Estelle to France, where they got to know their cousin Edgar and his brothers René and Achille.

While Edgar completed some portraits of his aunt and cousins during their time in France, his brother René was falling in love with Estelle. René writes at one point, “She inspires so much sympathy, she has so much sweetness in her sadness that she made us all become attached to her in an instant.” He and Achille leave France to find their fortunes in Louisiana once the war is over, and, in a move that would be shocking today but wasn’t uncommon then, René and Estelle become husband and wife.

René and Achille formed their own import/export firm in New Orleans and joined Michel’s cotton factoring operation. Factors were commissioned agents working in the city who handled the business end of buying, selling and exporting cotton for the rural growers and plantation owners who were spread throughout the region.

Michel’s fortunes went into steady decline after the war. He had gone “all in” for the South and invested heavily in Confederate war bonds, which, of course, were worthless after the war. He sold his Garden District home and moved the family into the rented mansion on Esplanade in 1869.

Rendered by architectural artist Adrian Persac shortly after it was built in 1858, the home on Esplanade Avenue appears as a large, stately, well-landscaped mansion occupying the river-side end of the block, taking up, as the formal description states, “two fine lots of ground.” A wing is attached to its side; there are a couple of detached buildings alongside the property and a pigeonnier in the garden to the rear of the house.

The state of the Musson family fortune made life in the home more like a bunkhouse than a mansion. Upwards of 16 people lived there, at least six of them energetic kids, with the parlors partitioned off and serving as bedrooms for the unmarried adults; the married couples and children were in the bedrooms upstairs.

“Louisiana must be respected by all her children … and I am almost one of them.”
—Edgar Degas

René Degas traveled to France in 1872 to buy costumes for the next year’s Comus Mardi Gras proceedings. (The secretive organization’s 1873 ball and procession became perhaps the most famous of all time, with the theme “Darwin’s Origin of Species” providing cover for the satiric skewering of the Union conquerors, carpetbaggers and reconstructionists who ruled Louisiana at the time.) His mission on behalf of the Mistick Krewe completed, René convinced Edgar to come back with him to New Orleans for a visit.

While his works now fetch millions of dollars on the open market, Degas was struggling for recognition in the formal salons of Paris, and, like the Mussons, he was at a difficult point in his life when he came to visit in the fall of 1872.

The Degas House on Esplanade Avenue.

David Villarrubia, who has owned the Degas House since 1993 and has endeavored to restore it to its Creole roots, has spent years researching Degas’ life. He explains, “Degas is 38, just out of the Franco-Prussian War and just got kicked to the curb by his girlfriend. He’s hurting, he’s down, he lost his best friend in battle and he realizes he’s going blind—that’s a hell of a thing for a painter who is not really famous. He’s a little bit popular in Paris, but he’s not the Degas we’ve come to know.”

Degas’ eyes gave him fits in New Orleans. While fascinated with the scenery and diversity of possible subjects on the riverfront and in and around the market’s stalls, the glare hurt his eyes too much for him to spend enough time to make any drawings.

“One does nothing here, it lies in the climate, nothing but cotton, one lives for cotton and from cotton. The light is so strong that I have not yet been able to do anything on the river. My eyes are so greatly in need of care that I scarcely take any risk with them at all. A few family portraits will be the sum total of all my efforts,” Degas writes.

Despite his complaints, Villarrubia notes, “New Orleans was a very pivotal point in time for his art. He does re-group here. He’s with family. His letters explain a tremendous amount of what he was going through when he arrives here. He hadn’t been painting, so he starts painting again.”

Degas does get to paint some family portraits and manages to incorporate life’s great topic, cotton, into a couple of paintings that will make him famous. “What he accomplishes while he’s here is pretty amazing,” says Villarrubia. Regarded as one of Degas’ most cherished masterworks is an unlikely family portrait that appears to be an observational picture of some men at work in an office. “Portraits in an Office at the New Orleans Cotton Exchange—which was done on Factor’s Row, not the Cotton Exchange—is 14 people, and they’re recognizable. You could hold a photograph up and we know who they were,” says Villarrubia. “His brothers René and Achille, cousin-in-law William Bell, Oscar Chopin and his uncle’s business partners, all included in this fantastic painting of his uncle’s cotton office, which is going defunct.”

Degas’ painting Children on a Doorstep depicts several of Degas’ young cousins and nieces and nephews, along with one of the household’s nurses, framed in a doorway leading out to the back garden, the family dog in the garden and a neighbor’s home in the background.

There are 18 paintings in all attributed to Degas’ time in New Orleans. His cousins Estelle and Mathilde are certainly subjects. He didn’t always identify his subjects or state whether their depictions were to be portraiture or used as models to which he applied his own spin on a figurative work. It’s been the job of experts to speculate who may or may not be the person depicted in some of his New Orleans portraits. While some are definitely of Estelle, and at least one definitely Mathilde, there is no consensus whether unmarried cousin Désirée is in any of the paintings.

Tragedies

“Ah! my friend, how I have also wept—even though at my age, and given how much I have already wept, the stream is nearly dried up.”
—letter from Michel Musson to Edgar Degas, 1883.

Michel Musson, Degas’ uncle and paterfamilias of the New Orleans branch of the family, continued to suffer misfortune after misfortune in the years after Edgar returned to Paris in 1873.

Musson corresponded with Edgar for years, with no success, in an attempt to have him send to New Orleans the portrait of his daughter Mathilde, probably the painting now known as Woman Seated Near a Balcony. (The piece is now in the collection of the Ordrupgaard Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, as is Children on a Doorstep.)

In 1878, Edgar’s brother, René, had an affair and then ran off with America Olivier. She was the children’s music teacher and had been hired to read to Estelle, who was by then blind. The Oliviers were close friends of the family. In a legacy made permanent through Edgar’s art, America Olivier had also been the lady of the house that is seen in the background of his painting Children on a Doorstep.

“America was married, they took her children with them and got ‘quickie’ divorces and ‘quickie’ married, and they were off to France. He had left Estelle blind, with six children, so nobody was very happy with him,” says Joan Prados, a tour guide at the Degas House and a descendant of Estelle Musson and René Degas. One of their children was Prados’ grandfather, Gaston Degas, who was the godson of the Oliviers. In the coming years, four of Estelle’s children with René died. Michel adopted the two surviving children, Gaston and Odile, replacing the now-despised Degas name with his own.

By the time Michel Musson died in 1885, he had also seen the death of his daughter Mathilde, Josephine Balfour (Estelle’s daughter from her first marriage) and his brother, Henri.

Adrien Persac's painting of the Degas House from the 1850s.

The Degas family was not without difficulties. In France, Degas’ father dies, leaving him to deal with the family’s bank that had failed, in no small part, due to investments in the Confederacy made at the behest of Michel. It didn’t help that René had lost thousands of dollars of the bank’s money in a series of unsuccessful business dealings prior to his abandoning Estelle for America Olivier.

“It took Degas about 10 years to pay off the bank’s debt, and he did it by painting ballet pictures, for the most part,” Prados says. “That’s one reason he became known as a painter of artists and dancers over anything else. They say about half of his work was dancers, so he did a lot of other things people don’t know him for.”

Restoration

Villarrubia grew up in the neighborhood and was familiar with the home on Esplanade and its historic marker, which had been placed in the ’70s, but didn’t know a whole lot more. As an airline pilot, he had spent time in Europe enjoying art museums, including the Monet House in Giverny, France. In 1993, he took a break from flying due to illness in his family. Villarrubia recalls that one day, “I passed the house and it had a ‘For Sale by Owner’ sign. I called a friend of mine who was in real estate to come see the house with me.

“I was curious about where Degas had painted. Having traveled a lot in Europe, I knew that if this were in Europe, it would be a museum house. So we came through the house, and the owner didn’t know anything about Degas, except to say the name on the marker was ‘Dee-gas,’ who’s actually in the encyclopedia.

Degas' "Children on a Doorstep" depicts the rear of the Degas House.

“The house was in terrible shape. It had been remodeled with drop ceilings added, and there was termite damage throughout. “The architectural detailing was there; it was just hidden. The ceilings had been lowered; they were acoustical tile and really had not been done well,” Villarrubia remembers. Concerned that the home was to be featured in the next day’s real estate section of the paper, he asked his friend to make an offer on the house right away.

“We got a contract late that night and started this adventure.” Villarrubia says he wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it; he just knew that he didn’t want the property to keep going in the direction it had been going. It was a favorable price because the owners were looking to dump it, not knowing exactly what they had. He didn’t necessarily intend to keep and restore the house himself, just to preserve it until the right person came along. “I didn’t think it would be my adventure. I thought the museum would be interested, or the City of New Orleans, but nobody really understood.”

His adventure, it turns out, involved even more research about the painter and his family, a quest to solve an architectural mystery and a lot of hard work.

What researchers believed was that the house with the historical marker in front of it (the second house from the corner of N. Tonti and Esplanade) had an additional wing during Degas’ time that had since been demolished. Villarrubia had a revelation of sorts when he went to talk to his neighbor across the street. She told him, “Well, they write their books and their newspaper articles about the house, but they never ask for my perspective.”

“I was patronizing her,” Villarrubia says, “thinking she was probably lonely, so I asked, ‘What is your perspective?’ She said to get up on the stoop and she would show me. I got up there, she turned me around and faced me towards house on the corner and the one with the marker, and she said, ‘Look at the roof lines. That wing wasn’t destroyed, it was just moved.’”

He remembers, “It hit me like a train, because I could see it. The guillotine windows were still in the front behind glass jalousies and yellow brick that had been used to modernize the building.”

Villarrubia dug deep into the property’s history and found that after the Mussons moved out in 1880, the home became the Markey-Picard Institute for Girls, a young ladies’ finishing school, until 1917, when Madame Picard died. Her succession wasn’t complete, he says, until 1920, when her heirs sold it to a developer, who split the property into six different lots of ground.

“The dividing line for lots one and two went through the parlor. So they simply moved it and re-did it as a more modern house. They got rid of the high doorways and enclosed the parlor into several apartments. It became a six-plex.” The house was cut in two at the left side of the doorway in the center of the house and both sides moved to the centers of their newly defined lots. The wing that had been on the side was moved and attached to the rear of the main section.

Degas' "Portrait of Estelle." Courtesy the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Villarrubia has restored the house that was traditionally believed to be the Degas House into an elegant and formal space in a manner as close as possible to its appearance during Degas’ visit. The bedrooms upstairs have been converted into charming rooms and suites that form part of the home’s latest incarnation—it is now a bed and breakfast.

He acquired the corner property as well, which had undergone several additions and modernized touches over the years, rendering it, as he explained earlier, almost unrecognizable as part of the same home. “It’s the second project we’ve taken on, never to be as formal as the other. We don’t want to Disney-fy this one and make them matching twins. We use this more for the offices of our non-profit and for the tours. People who come for tours see this more as the museum and classroom side, and over there it’s more elegant and finished.”

Joan Prados points out that the door itself where the children were standing in Children on a Doorstep is now part of the wing that had been added to the main house when the property was divided. It still looks out to the back courtyard, which, at the time it was painted, was a garden that extended completely across the block to the next street. The home in the background was where the Mussons’ close friends, the Oliviers, lived. It still stands on N. Tonti; today, however, there are several other houses between it and the Degas House.

Ghosts of Residents Past

Villarrubia says the property is not an art museum and he doesn’t ever intend it to be one. It is home, however, to quality reproductions of the paintings attributed to Degas during his time spent there. He says, “Our focus is history. The reproductions are there as a backdrop to the history and the stories that we tell. You get a sense of how beautiful these paintings are without traveling the rest of the world; they’re in the context of where they were actually painted.”

Traces remain, like the doorway where the children once stood and Degas painted them. In the background of Mathilde’s portrait on the balcony is the sketchy shadow—an impression—of the iron railing that still rings the balcony today. A print of a painting of a pregnant Estelle, sitting on a daybed, her blind eyes fixed on nothing, stands on an easel under the main stairway. A print of The Song Rehearsal, a painting that depicts a man resembling his brother René at a piano with two ladies singing, hangs in the front parlor. “The picture,” Prados says, “was done in this room. It doesn’t have all the features of the room, but Degas says, ‘painting is not copying.’ You have René playing piano. Degas put the pocket doors on a different side, and then he changes it into a single door.”

A reproduction of the portrait of Estelle, the largest of his New Orleans works, hangs over the fireplace in the center room. Depicting a pregnant Estelle arranging a vase of flowers, it is, for the city of New Orleans and, it turns out, the Degas House itself, the most important of all. Portrait of Mme René De Gas, née Estelle Musson now resides in the New Orleans Museum of Art. How it became a cornerstone of the collection is a great story that in no small measure inspired Villarrubia to become the steward of the home where it was painted, just a few blocks away from the museum.

“In 1965, the then Delgado Museum [New Orleans Museum of Art] was empty. They had to lure people from the Quarter to an empty museum. The director at the time, James Byrnes, took on the challenge of putting something in the museum done by the most famous painter that ever lived in New Orleans, Edgar Degas. He found a painting on the market, the portrait of Estelle, went on a public campaign to raise enough funds to buy it and was able to do that through a campaign called ‘Bring Estelle Home.’ As a campaign, it involved every layer of society. The city put up some money, corporations put up some money, Junior League, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, bake sales at schools, everybody participated. On the final day, he was $5,000 short. He went back on radio and TV making a further appeal. Late into the night, he got a call from an anonymous donor who put up the money so they would not have to re-crate the painting and send it back to London.”

With the restoration of the Degas House and the success of the campaign to “Bring Estelle Home,” the historic connection between New Orleans and Edgar Degas—one of Louisiana’s “almost” children—is perpetuated for generations to come.

The post Creole Ghosts of Esplanade Avenue: The Degas House appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

The Southern Hotel soon after it was completed. Photo courtesy Rusty Burns.

The hotel was built in 1907 during the glory days of the “Ozone Belt,” when the area enjoyed immense popularity as a resort. The cool air flowing out of the piney woods was welcome in the days before air conditioning, and area waters, whether from springs or deep wells, were reputed to be medicinal. The Southern Hotel and others on the northshore thus attracted guests from all over the country.

Lisa Condrey Ward purchased the Southern Hotel along with her husband, Joseph, her brother Ricky Condrey and his wife, Gayle, in 2011. She is familiar with its history, noting, “It catered to northerners during the winter and New Orleanians during the summer.” They purchased the building last November, but it had been on her mind since she first saw it. “We moved here from New Orleans in 1999. I started talking about it, probably the day after we moved here, ‘Gosh, why hasn’t somebody turned that back into a hotel?’”

The Southern Hotel. Photo courtesy Rusty Burns.

Their plans are to renovate the mission-style, 34,000-square-foot building and open it as a boutique hotel. Ward has hired architect Peter Trapolin of New Orleans, a veteran of several successful historic hotel renovations.

While it’s still on the drawing board, Ward says, “It’s going to have 41 rooms and a restaurant on the New Hampshire corner. We’re looking for an exciting restaurateur to work with on the build-out.” She hopes her plans for the property spark as much interest in what the area has to offer today’s visitors as the elements did at the turn of the century. “I want people to come here and enjoy things like the bike path—we’re going to have bikes available and kayaks for the river.”

Renovations include facilities that Covington residents will be able to take advantage of as well as the hotel’s guests. “We’re going to have a ballroom and space for business meetings.” Ward notes the building is in the shape of a “u” that opens onto the alley that runs from New Hampshire to Vermont. “We’re going to close that in and have the ballroom and all those spaces spill out into a really beautiful courtyard. It will be a very nice party space. The hotel bar will be open to everyone, and that’s going to have access to the courtyard, too.”

Echoing Mayor Cooper’s optimism in the project’s role in the revitalization of downtown Covington, Ward says, “I think there’s going to be a renaissance. Covington is already a great little town. My personal vision is to expand the types and diversity of businesses into something similar to what Magazine Street has in New Orleans. If we put that together, get the movie theater open—and hopefully the hotel will be an ideal catalyst for that—it will become a really wonderful, pedestrian-friendly city that has a lot to offer.”

The post The Southern Hotel Rises Again appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

STHBA uses the money raised from the sale of raffle tickets to fund the construction of the house, marketing and other expenses incurred. The money left after expenses is divided among the year’s charities.
Last year, the charities split $165,000.

The 2012 charities are The Good Samaritan Ministry, Habitat for Humanity St. Tammany West, Support Our War Heroes, The Tammany Trace Foundation and The St. Tammany HBA Charitable Trust.

2012 STPHA Raffle House.

The Raffle House is always constructed by the previous year’s president of STHBA. This year’s house, by Integrity Builders, LLC, is located at 456 N. Corniche du Lac in Maison du Lac subdivision in Covington. Wainer Companies donated the lot. “Building the house was a great experience. So many people have helped by donating time and talent,” says Kenny Adams. “We wanted to use natural cypress beams in the great room, so we had to go all the way to Lafayette to get them. The whole project has turned out beautifully.”

This project could not have been completed without the donations of time, energy and products from many northshore businesses, including Resource Bank, which provided the funding, and Murphy Appraisal, which appraised the house for $470,000. Cabinetry throughout the house was provided by Milltown Cabinets. Pinegrove Electric supplied the interior light fixtures. Plumbing supplies were given by Southland Plumbing. The finishing touches to the exterior were provided by Bevolo Gas & Electric Lights. Adding to the beauty of the home are interior furnishings by American Factory Direct and carpeting by Carpet Showcase.

The winners of the 2011 Raffle House were Brandt and Lindsay Quick. “We got a phone message from Kenny Adams, asking us to call him right away,” says Brandt. “Lindsay said we must have won a cruise or a gift certificate. When I called Kenny back and he said we had won the house we were shocked beyond belief. We quickly checked the number on the ticket and then headed over to the house.”

The Quicks have lived in the house since September and love the neighborhood. “We are incredibly blessed to live with our family in such a wonderful house in a great neighborhood,” says Brandt.

Raising the Roof raffle tickets are $100; a maximum of 7,000 will be sold. The drawing for the winner will be held at the Raffle House on June 2, 2012, at 11am. For information on purchasing tickets, see raisingtheroof.net.

The post Raising the Roof for Charity: The STHBA 2012 Raffle House appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

As you approach the white stone home, you are reminded of a European manor house. The symmetry, the shape of the windows and the porte-cochère give grand scale to the exterior. The finish was created by mixing stucco with crushed limestone into an ultra-smooth finish. Peacock Pavers top the stairs, which lead to the Spanish cedar arched French front doors.

The owners’ passion for art and openness is evident when you enter the house. Its contemporary look belies its warmth. A Garland Robinette portrait hangs in the foyer, while two upholstered iron benches sit under trumeau mirrors that Paula designed and painted. Four oversized antiqued bronze iron sconces flank the mirrors. Peacock Pavers in Buff, which look like reclaimed limestone and have a contrasting grout, run throughout the foyer, kitchen and great room. At the end of the foyer, the stairwell reveals two more of Paula’s creations, a tall iron chandelier and the iron stair railings. The railings lend curves against Matt’s trademark storefront-style floor-to-ceiling windows. “I love the way Paula brought curves into the room,” says Matt. “Everything about this house is bold.”

A decagon-shaped cocktail table and the desk chair add modern sophistication. Copyright 2011, Thomas Growden.

Most of the walls in the house are finished in a product called American Clay in the Porcelina finish. “American Clay is 100 percent green, environmentally friendly and is an alternative to cement and lime plasters. The look of rich texture and depth creates a crisp luster and satin-smooth finish,” says Matt. The walls set the tone for a neutral, subdued palette throughout the house.

The office off the foyer houses a Julian Chichester kidney-shaped bureau and built-in desk with bookshelves that are painted a glazed cream. A large portrait of Brett that Paula did hangs over the small brown velvet sofa. The bookcase showcases a Robert Cook painting, while family mementoes and photographs fill the shelves. The walls are painted Texas Leather. A contemporary desk chair and a solid wood decagon-shaped cocktail table add modern sophistication.

Many of the beams and old timbers in the house are reclaimed from an old warehouse. For the great room, Matt designed structural trusses made from 200-year-old Canadian fir hand-hewn beams from a church in Canada. Six iron and seeded-glass lanterns give a soft glow to the room. Two natural linen shelter sofas with taupe linen trim are at right angles to a round antiqued mirrored table. The cocktail table, a mirrored cube with gold trim, is topped by the simplicity of natural coral. Behind one sofa is a table consisting of a plank top resting on old pillars from a French hotel. Two sea urchin lamps, in a silver finish, are topped with linen shades. A long narrow leather box with metal studs completes the look. The tall armoire, with a carved diamond motif, is a soft muted grey-green. Natural linen draperies have a woven embroidered silk trim that mimics the design of the armoire. The rugs in the great room and dining room are custom-made Oushaks.

The oversized marble island in the kitchen is complemented by glazed cabinets and a vent hood trimmed in antique beam. Copyright 2011, Thomas Growden.

The fireplace breast is made of the same material as the outside of the house, crushed limestone with plaster. With an old beam for a mantle, the simple classic French lines add character to the sculpted fireplace. A small Robert Cook painting sits atop the mantle. The andirons and fireplace tools are custom. Over the faux-bois demi-lune tables on either side of the fireplace are framed geometric English tapestries of embroidered linen.

In the dining room, a server made from an old French Quarter cypress beam is decorated with two iron candle lanterns that Matt designed. Above it hangs an oversized painting in bright colors by Dr. Swalomir Lazczkowski, a family friend. Salvaged from Katrina, the twelve-foot dining tabletop has new cast-stone bases. “The tabletop floated up several times during the flood,” says Paula, “so we salvaged it and had it refinished.” The wood and iron chandelier is made from an old reclaimed wine barrel. Arches leading into the great room are mimicked by the Spanish cedar French doors to the terrace.

A fire crackles in the hearth of the French-style fireplace. Copyright 2011, Thomas Growden.

“The dining room was originally designed as an outdoor space. As we got close to completion, we realized that we could enclose the space and still have a terrace,” says Paula.

Cascading steps lead down to the pool and lower patio from the dining room and terrace. Paula says, “You can see the pool from every room in the house.” The cabana houses relaxed furniture and gives a bird’s-eye view of the one-acre lot, which is filled with blueberry bushes and lemon and orange trees. European-style landscaping accents the lines of the house. Teak loungers and cubes of teak root once again give a contemporary edge to the scene, while Bevolo lanterns provide old-world ambiance. A large-screen television drops down from the cabana so movies can be viewed from the pool and terrace.

Nestled beside the stairs, the breakfast room features a black lacquered round table surrounded by six mixed chairs. “The use of the smaller leather and wood director-style chairs with the slip covered parsons chairs is an interesting mix,” says Paula. An open ironwork obelisk, another of Matt’s designs, anchors the corner of the room, while an antique zebra rug is in the foreground.

The open kitchen is dominated by a 7-foot-by-13-foot Calcutta Gold marble island. Every modern convenience is there, with the stainless steel appliances once again giving a modern edge. “This kitchen is perfect,” says Paula. “We created lots of storage in the island and everything is within reach.” Trimmed with an old beam, the vent hood is in the style of the fireplace. Natural woven wood blinds dress the windows. Keeping with the natural color scheme, the cabinets are a very subtle Coastal Fog, with a black glaze.

An elaborate electronic automation system allows Paula and Brett to watch the children, listen to music, and climate control the entire house with the push of a button.

The master bedroom is another study in simplicity. Sheer panels hang at the corners of the hammered silver-finished iron bed, which has a mohair headboard. A large custom armoire houses a television and other electronics. Over a small brown velvet settee hangs a starburst mirror that reflects the light of an antique French chandelier. On a traditional Victorian marble-topped walnut chest of drawers is a contemporary lamp with a burlap shade. The wood plank floor is topped with a custom-made rug; the walls are painted Texas Leather.

In the sleek, spacious master bathroom, a large whirlpool tub, surrounded with dark granite, overlooks a stainless steel fireplace filled with limestone rocks. Custom-made sink bases, with Harlequin-design fronts, hold Purist-style countertop lavatory sinks with granite tops. The walk-through shower is tiled in chipped limestone. Burnished brown glass tile, in matte and glossy finishes, creates a broad stripe on the front of the shower wall. White Rice-tinted Peacock Pavers are placed on the diagonal to create an even more spacious feel. The custom closets and deluxe coffee bar—with a refrigerator—make the master bath an adult retreat.

Paula, Brett and Matt, with help from designer Holly Biggs, have created a warm European-style house that is spacious, open and shows their artistic touches throughout.

The post Design: Old World Inspiration appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.