In the spring of 2017, Christine Albert’s plans included dropping by an estate sale. Rather than coming away from the sale with a new addition to her art or vintage décor collection, Albert says, “I actually bought the house.” The Eastlake side-hall-style home in Uptown was built sometime between the late 1800s or early 1900s. Untouched since the ‘70s, the home had great bones and was a blank canvas Albert couldn’t wait to fill with color and the collected ephemera from her travels and vibrant daily life.
Albert’s initial focus was on essential upgrades, such as new electrical and plumbing systems, air conditioning and floor repairs, as well as restoring and replacing shutters and restoring the front porch. For this stage, Albert called upon contractor Stephen Adams of Adams Construction + Development and landscape architect Dan Garness of Garness Studio. Once the updates were complete, Albert turned her attention to the fun part: the home’s interior design. Nomita Joshi-Gupta of Nomita Joshi Studio honed in on Albert’s love of art and travel to help her create interiors that reflect her colorful, eclectic and whimsical style.
One of the interior’s many striking features is the shimmering, gold 1970s-era wallpaper in the front parlor, which Albert and Joshi-Gupta decided to keep. “I was kind of obsessed with that wallpaper,” says Albert, who found Joshi-Gupta through Spruce, the designer’s Magazine Street wallpaper showroom. “It became the anchor point for me to build the entire house around.” Wallpaper abounds in the home’s rooms, infusing it with a fearless color palette. The visual playfulness culminates in the kitchen, which is a kaleidoscope of color and pattern with primarily pink House of Hackney floral paper adorning the walls, a black-and-white checkerboard floor and white cabinetry juxtaposed by red cabinetry defining the bold space. A custom-made Chris Antioch piece, “Dog with Cheese,” hangs above the sink and pays homage to one of Albert’s two canines, a cheese-loving cattle dog, Carter.
Throughout the home, elements such as the double parlors, high ceilings and transom windows belie the two-bedroom, one-bath home’s modest, approximately 1,725 square footage. “My goal was to keep the house as intact as possible and true to the original home,” says Albert, who loves historic homes. “I think that’s what makes where we live so unique and the ability, especially in this town, to be colorful and make choices that are interesting. You don’t have to feel like you’re in a cookie cutter neighborhood where the HOA is telling you to paint the door a certain shade of tan.”
Albert loves to entertain, especially during Carnival season and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage festival. The double parlors make it easy. “People are still close enough that it feels like one space, but it’s not like one giant room you’re dealing with,” says Albert. “So for me, that functionally worked really well for indoor entertaining.” Despite the attention paid to the kitchen’s vivid décor, Albert admits not being into cooking or hosting elaborate dinner parties. Drinks and snacks in the parlors when it’s too hot are more her speed, but Albert’s favorite place to party is the porch. That said, even the garage has become a seasonal hotspot. “It’s my glitter garage,” says Albert, who rides in Muses. “Not all year-round, but as soon as January kicks in, the tables go up, the glue guns come out and friends who ride or anybody else who wants to craft and doesn’t want to have glitter in their house can pop by. There’s music playing and it’s a drop in, hang out kind of moment.”
Places like Mexico, India, France and Spain continue to inspire the interior as Albert adds new pieces picked up during her travels. Collecting pieces over time has been an essential ingredient to the lived-in, international aesthetic Albert and Joshi-Gupta worked to achieve, while always striving to honor the home itself.
“I’m a woman in a relationship with an historic house and two dogs,” Albert jokes. But, that relationship doesn’t rest on the surface of things collected or a showplace to display them for Albert. “Living in a city like New Orleans, where there is so much history and the past is still very present. It’s almost like you are, in some small way, kind of a steward of managing the house for the next generation.”
