The Inaugural Renaissance Awards

New Orleans, it’s been said again and again, is like nowhere else on earth. It feels different, it smells different, it looks different. After Katrina, many people speculated that that would change, that as New Orleans rebuilt, it would become
a wasteland of beige siding and hasty, shoddy construction. Thankfully, the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans was around to fight for New Orleans’ original architecture and make sure that didn’t happen.

“The PRC loves New Orleans,” says Beverly Lamb, the PRC’s director of development. “We’ve loved New Orleans forever. Since the storm, we have restored 120 houses, and now we have people coming to us for advice in greater numbers than ever, people who consult us as they rebuild so that the city stays looking as beautiful and unique as it always has.”

For the inaugural Renaissance Awards, New Orleans Homes and Lifestyles and the PRC have chosen five homes around the city that stayed true to the original
architecture of the home and respected the home’s history as they renovated.
The five winners will be honored at a September luncheon at which the Honorable Joseph P. Riley Jr. will be the keynote speaker. Riley is the mayor of Charleston, S.C., a city that faced its own rebuilding challenges after Hurricane Hugo hit in 1989, damaging three-quarters of the homes in Charleston’s historic district and causing more than $2.8 billion in damage.
 The Inaugural Renaissance Awards    The Inaugural Renaissance Awards    The Inaugural Renaissance Awards
Rashida Ferdinand
Ninth Ward

What was the reason for the renovation?
I had begun renovating the house when I initially bought it in 2004. I wanted to open the space up and modernize it a bit while still retaining some of its historic qualities. I removed the tile ceilings (paper tiles in the parlor and drop foam-like rectangular components for a ceiling in the dining room area). This revealed the wooden tongue-and-groove ceiling, but then there were tons of nails and thick green paint on the wood, so I removed a lot of the nails –– back-breaking work –– and sanded the paint down and hired people to help me out with this.

 I removed the wall that divided the two rooms and removed the plaster from the fireplace.

 In the second renovation [after Katrina], the floor furnace was removed and the back door of the house was removed, replaced by the transom that previously divided the two rooms. This renovation with an addition was not planned. I knew I would do something like this eventually but not so soon. I decided to do this second renovation during my post-Katrina rebuilding because I would be spending money to renovate the house anyway and thought it would be sensible to go ahead and make the space livable for my future family and increase my property value since I did have the yard space to add on. I also wanted to enjoy the view of the Mississippi River and add a galley porch –– those were my two ultimate goals for the second renovation.
 
What was your goal for the renovation when you started?
As stated above, to have a view of the Mississippi River, modernize the kitchen and a have a larger galley porch.

What were the challenges you encountered during the renovation?
Many decisions needed to be made very quickly, financing and budgeting my expenses and clarity about what was on the architectural plans and how that would be executed in the construction.

What is your favorite part of the renovation/favorite room or feature in the house?
My bedroom! I love the view and the drapes, and it’s very warm and cozy and intimate. I feel like I’m at a resort! It’s very peaceful, and I love the simplicity of it, the fact that it’s just a space with a bed. •

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Annie and Guy Smith
Broadmoor

What was the reason for the renovation?
Annie: It was because of the flood, but it was eventually welcomed. Before Katrina, we didn’t have any plans for major renovation at all. We had about 5 feet of water, so that changed things.

What was your goal for the renovation when you started?
Annie: Just to get back in the house and preserve as much as we could. We were eager to get back into our home and back into the neighborhood. This house has been in my family forever. The architect was Moise Goldstein, a friend of my father’s who turned into a very prominent architect in the city, and they designed the house and built in the late ‘30s, and we moved into it in 1940 when I was 5 with my three sisters. So I grew up here, and then after my father died, my mother sold the house to us and moved into an apartment. That was in 1978, and that’s when we moved back into the house. My kids were teenagers then, and we’ve lived here ever since. So during the renovation, we had a lot of memories to preserve. This is the place the family comes for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and they gather here when they’re around, so the renovation was important for them, too.

What were the challenges you encountered during the renovation?
Annie: Oh, they were no different than anyone’s challenges during renovation: getting it over with, supply and demand, construction delays. It was typical problems, but they were magnified because so many were going through it at the same time.

What is your favorite part of the renovation/favorite room or feature in the house?
Annie: The kitchen. We opened it up, knocked down a wall and made it one great big room. So now we have a place to sit and watch TV and read the paper in the morning. It’s a space that’s fine for casual entertaining and great for family get-togethers. •

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Matt Rosendahl
Uptown

What was the reason for the renovation?
I had been renovating houses for several years when I found this property in 2001. Many of the neighboring houses had not yet been redone, and this property was in poor condition. A lot of people consider a place in that condition a “tear-down.” It was definitely a challenge, but having tackled houses in similar condition in the past, I knew it could be done.
 
What was your goal for the renovation when you started?
My goal was to create a personal residence that was inviting and comfortable: tropical on the outside, gracious and open on the inside, easy to live in, easy to entertain in.

What were the challenges you encountered during the renovation?
The house was a box with no personality. A lot of planning went into making the house look appealing while being confined to a small lot. It is also the first project I renovated with a slab foundation. The slab was damaged, and it was challenging to work through the issues that presented.

What is your favorite part of the renovation/favorite room or feature in the house?
The wraparound balcony and deck are definitely my favorite part of the house. It is great for entertaining because it is an extension of the upstairs living space. It allows me outdoor space while not having a yard. I like opening the doors and letting in the fresh air –– there is always a nice breeze off the river. •

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Becca and Gregor Fox
Garden District

   
What was the reason for the renovation?
Gregor: It was dumb luck. We’d been renovating houses for maybe six years at that point, and this house presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Becca: We were living in a great house on Chestnut, but we wanted to find a house where we could raise a family. I told our realtor that I wanted “a house like that one I drive past on Washington.” I never thought we’d actually get that exact house.

What was your goal for the renovation when you started?
Gregor: The house was already so beautiful and grand. It just needed love, and now it’s the ultimate dream house. It became obvious in the beginning that the front would stay very traditional and formal but that in the back we’d have a big living room/dining room/ kitchen area where we’d spend 90 percent of our waking hours.

Becca: We wanted to respect the nature of the house but make it comfortable for a modern family.

What were the challenges you encountered during the renovation?
Becca: Living in the house while renovation is going on is very frustrating. You can’t keep it clean, and you’ve got people in your house all day every day. Once we started having kids, it felt like it would never end. We were living on the second floor while renovating the first, so everything had to go up: kids, groceries…. And we had all of this space up there that we knew would eventually be wonderful, but sometimes it was just disheartening to see it so empty.

What is your favorite part of the renovation/favorite room or feature in the house?

Gregor: The doors. From the 10-foot doors up front to the doors in the back that were inexplicably cut in half in the ‘80s but that with a lot of carpentry, we’ve made work as French doors. And I love the sliding panel in the old door that used to be between the dining room and the butler’s pantry.

Becca: The powder room. It’s tucked in behind the stairs, and it’s a clear retrofit from when they put in plumbing. I just wanted to do something really funky with that little space, and my decorator, Jennifer Taylor, came up with the idea of using Flavor Paper, which is a local company, and I got David Borgerding to do the mirror and the basin holder. It was a collaborative effort, and I just think it’s the cutest bathroom ever! •
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Erich and Jennifer Weishaupt
Mid-City

What was the reason for the renovation?
Erich: The storm –– we had to renovate because of the storm. We’d renovated several homes in the area already, so we had some idea of the process, and my wife was pregnant at the time, so we really wanted to be in our home and not in a FEMA trailer.

What was your goal for the renovation when you started?
Erich: We wanted an open floor plan for entertaining, and then we tried to do things like foam insulation and adding a tankless water heater to try to improve energy-efficiency and do a smart renovation. We also wanted to preserve the plaster archway and the plaster medallions, and we wanted to keep the original door frames and doors in the house and keep the original windows and floors.
What were the challenges you encountered during the renovation?
Erich: It was hard finding help at the time, and it was hard to find certain specialty products. Looking for a plasterer, dealing with the city: It was a challenge, but it was absolutely worth it.

What is your favorite part of the renovation/favorite room or feature in the house?
Erich: The dining room is my favorite room now with the salvaged hardwood floors that we salvaged from another house and the original cypress beadboard that we found under the sheetrock when we gutted the house. •

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