When Jennifer DiCerbo finally had the chance to design a home without a client’s wish list, a committee or a compromised vision, she did what any designer worth her credentials would do. She went all in.
DiCerbo is the founder and principal of The French Mix, a full-service interior design studio and 4,000-square-foot showroom in historic Covington that has made her one of the most recognized names in residential design on the north shore. Her philosophy is to blend European antiques, custom furnishings and original art into spaces that feel collected rather than decorated. But it was only when she turned that philosophy entirely on herself that the full picture emerged.
The story of the house begins with a lot, and a love affair with its trees. In 2008, DiCerbo and her husband purchased a century-old cottage on a Covington property shaded by sweeping live oaks. They renovated in 2009, but it was never quite right. What she really wanted was to build from scratch on a piece of land she already loved. “I loved our lot with those gorgeous oaks,” she says. So in June 2017, the DiCerbos moved out. That October, the cottage came down.
She had been working with Baton Rouge architect Andy McDonald of the Andy McDonald Design Group since late 2016, developing plans for a home rooted in the south Louisiana vernacular she had long admired. Construction broke ground in 2018. On a December day in 2019, DiCerbo walked into the house she had spent three years envisioning — and kept right on designing.
What McDonald designed is a classically proportioned Greek Revival that wears its heritage without apology — a full-width front gallery carried on Doric columns, full-height louvered shutters, a traditional gas lantern hanging above double front doors and a herringbone brick walkway that sets an unhurried, gracious tone long before a visitor steps inside. The porch runs the length of the facade, and, in the south Louisiana tradition, it is a room unto itself.
“When possible, we open all the French doors, have music on, and bring the outdoors in,” DiCerbo says. On a typical evening, the gallery becomes the center of the household. Speakers carry music from room to room. Martini glasses, kept in a dedicated freezer, wait in readiness. The cocktails are house-made and seasonal with fresh-juiced watermelon or orange muddled with mint, basil or jalapeño. “I love how refined it is, but still welcoming and approachable,” she adds.
That word — approachable — turns up again and again when DiCerbo describes her design intentions. Inside the house, the formal front parlor could easily read as intimidating. Instead, it reads as alive. A dramatic black marble fireplace dominates the room’s far wall, flanked symmetrically by a pair of Louis XVI-style chairs upholstered in bold black-and-white zebra print. Above the mantel hangs an oversized mirror — not an antique, but a reproduction cast from original molds sourced in France. “It’s all about the mix,” DiCerbo says. “Mixing periods and textures for a layered, collected-over-time look.”
Overhead, a tiered brass-and-crystal chandelier — a custom piece by New Orleans lighting designer Julie Neill, now known through her collection with Visual Comfort — fills the room with refracted light. The choice was deliberate and architectural. “I didn’t want our home to feel like new construction,” DiCerbo says. “The antique chandeliers, antique mirrors, marble fireplaces — they needed to also bring history. The mix of mediums — like silk, crystal, gold, velvet and iron — is essential in creating a space.”
The family room shifts the ambiance without abandoning the thread. Here, McDonald’s coffered ceiling — one of the home’s most purely architectural interior gestures — gives the room both gravitas and height. Against it, a sculptural gold sputnik chandelier is modern, sharp and intentional. Against the wainscoted wall stands a large black lacquered armoire with gold inlay, flanked by a pair of framed antique pieces — dried botanicals in French frames, acquired at a Dallas antique dealer.
That thread reaches its most dramatic expression in the butler’s pantry, where floor-to-ceiling black cabinetry with polished brass hardware creates a lovely contrast to the white kitchen directly adjacent. A crystal-and-brass chandelier — sourced through The French Mix — turns the utilitarian space into something ceremonial. The kitchen itself is luminous and airy with white painted cabinetry, a marble island, Lucite barstools and a pair of brass lantern pendants that echo the gas lantern outside. The room’s centerpiece is a custom brass range hood designed to complement the La Cornue range below it. “I always wanted the hood to be an art piece,” DiCerbo says.
Through the dining room — where an antique oval table in deep mahogany is encircled by blue velvet chairs — a 1931 portrait of a woman in evening dress presides over the room from a gilded frame. DiCerbo found the piece through an antique dealer in North Carolina. “I saw her and instantly fell in love,” she says.
The primary suite takes all of the home’s design conversations and quiets them to a murmur. A matte black four-poster canopy bed anchors the room at its center, its clean geometry softened by layers of gray silk and a blush embroidered lumbar pillow (custom-made in Fortuny fabric, produced in The French Mix’s own drapery workroom). A pair of Gustavian-style nightstands in aged white with gilt hardware flank the bed; a gilt sunburst mirror hangs above it; antique mirrors lean against the walls. The room is still, in DiCerbo’s telling, not entirely finished. “I may wallpaper,” she says. “I’m considering a grass cloth with some color saturation. Design, like a good collection, continues to evolve.”
The primary bathroom is, by design, a room outside of time. DiCerbo clad it entirely in Arabescato marble — the floors, tub deck, shower walls — and paired the stone with white-painted cabinetry, polished brass and nickel hardware, and a beaded crystal chandelier suspended above the soaking tub. The art here is as considered as anywhere in the house. On the wall beside the tub hangs a large canvas by Zana Brown, the New Orleans painter known for her ethereal, feminine figurative work.
On the opposite wall, a pair of framed works on silver leaf — painted blossoms on antique fragments — echo the floral sensibility of Brown’s artwork while not competing with the marble’s natural drama. “I wanted a timeless feel, like what you would find at a five-star hotel that’s 100 years old, with all marble,” DiCerbo says.
DiCerbo works from a home office, which means she experiences the space she built in every dimension — as designer, homeowner and professional. Floor-to-ceiling French doors and windows flood the interiors with natural light, making the house feel connected to the oaks outside in every season. The porch, the pool terrace, the walled garden courtyard with its concrete dining table and wicker chairs set beneath a canopy of star jasmine — each outdoor space was designed with the same deliberateness as the rooms within. “I wanted the pool to feel like a courtyard — charming and quaint, not a new oversized pool,” she says.
For anyone building or designing their dream home, DiCerbo says it is important to work with an architect and a designer. “Also, incorporate antiques so it’s not just one period, and so you have a home that feels collected over time versus new construction,” she says. “Mix the mediums. Don’t follow trends; stay classic and timeless. Go smaller to have the budget for better finishes. I think people build ridiculously huge homes and then they can’t do it well.”
What DiCerbo has done, she has done very well. The house is both a professional manifesto and a personal sanctuary — a place where the inspiration of New Orleans architecture and the elegance of European interiors arrive at the same address and find they have a great deal in common. “Take your time, don’t settle, buy quality, mix in antiques and art,” DiCerbo says. “And I can help.”
