http://5516dauphine.com/news.html wes & anne: News Jannis' PHPRss class - http://www.jannis.to/ Mon, 06 Feb 2012 01:02:30 -0800 http://5516dauphine.com/news.html#24
WHO CAME DOWN TO WORK?
Wes: March 5th — 17th and April 2nd — 20th
Anne: March 5th — 8th, 13th — 18th, April 2nd — 14th and 16th — 20th.
Joe Loya: March 5th — 8th and April 16th — 20th.
James & Wyatt Martin: March 5th — 8th.
Chris Gignoux: March 5th — 11th.
Jean Marie Callahan: March 8th — 12th
Robert McBride: April 5th — 9th.
Preston Maynard: April 5th — 8th.
Beth Humstone: April 6th — 10th.
David and Alix Harris: April 9th — 13th.
Melissa Ehlinger, April 17th
A crowd of high school kids from Syracuse, NY April 14th and 15th.

WHAT DID WE DO/ACCOMPLISH?
Installed the kitchen cabinets and counter tops.
Repaired the floor in the living room.
Trimmed interior doors and closets.
Endless scrapping to abate old lead paint.
Completed all interior painting of the walls and ceilings.
Had the radiant barrier installed in the attic.
Replaced the vent in the rear gable and repaired/replaced/painted that siding.
Painted exterior iron work.
Almost finished the repair and painting of all the windows.
Purchased and rebuilt salvaged exterior doors for the front façade.
Purchased 2 pairs of salvaged shutters for the front doors.
Did all of the tiling in the kitchen and bathroom.
Installed and hooked up the kitchen sink and dishwasher (donated by Dick Buckman — it works)
Installed new flooring in the bathroom, laundry and back hall.
Installed and hooked up the toilet, vanity, shower/bathtub and hot water tank.
Added a 2 x 6 plank to the front sill after discovering severe (but no longer active) termite damage.
Got a letter from the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority promising that our house will not be expropriated and that a similar letter will be written to the new owner when we sell it. They cannot, however, remove it from the “blighted property” list, as that list is maintained by the City of New Orleans, and there is no mechanism in place for that.
Had our power tools stolen but then returned.
Entertained the National Trust’s Council on April 17th.
Inherited a cat.
Ate very, very well every day.

WHERE DID WE STAY?
3828 Burgundy Street in Bywater. A house borrowed from our friend Roberta Gratz.
The Ambassador Hotel on Tchoupitoulas Street in the Warehouse District.
1412 Thalia Street in the Lower Garden District. An apartment with a fabulous garden.

WHERE DID WE EAT?
In addition to all of the great spots listed by Beth Humstone in her posting dated Jan. 16th, we discovered a few other favorites.
The Country Club: An old plantation house in Bywater which is now a restaurant with fabulous, quite price sensitive food as well as a bar and a spa, complete with a large swimming pool out back. The spa is “clothing optional”.
Herbsaint: very serious food. Good spot to take your lawyer to thank him for his donated services to the project.
Community Grill: just beyond the Jackson Barracks on North Claiborne Ave. Makes excellent Po’Boys for lunch — shrimp, hot sausage, grilled chicken or oyster. Wash that down with sweet tea and you’ll be ready for anything in the afternoon.
Frankie and Johnnie’s: On Arabella Street in Uptown. The place to go for large platters of boiled crawfish in season (roughly Feb — May). The waitress there taught us how to dig the tasty fat out of the heads with our pinky fingers. An acquired taste.
The Thai restaurant on Truro Street in the Marigny for a change of palette.
The Arabi Food Store. Excellent breakfast sandwiches, but not great coffee.
Every once in a while, red beans and rice at Roberta’s house.

WHAT'S LEFT TO DO?
Finish all interior trim.
Strip and refinish the floors.
Strip and paint the railing on the back steps.
Add all interior window stops.
Find and install a mantle piece for the front room.
Hang doors.
Lots of small, punch list items.
Figure out what to do with the shed in the back yard. Do it.
Replace the front walk.
Paint the front porch.
Work with the local churches to identify a buyer.]]> http://5516dauphine.com/news.html#24 Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700 frozen music - wes & anne - News http://5516dauphine.com/news.html#23
Seen without hyperbole, it’s a simple space for forgettable things: inherited sheets that don’t fit any of the beds, strands of Xmas lights one will fix in some unknowable yet possible future, the stack of Medicare explanation of benefits for a relative long gone — the stuff, frankly, you should throw away, but don’t.

You see, in 5516 Dauphine, built circa 1910, the closets of today, walk-ins with California Closet engineered racks of space don’t exist. In fact, the storage spaces that do exist, with the exception of a single tight rectangle (wide enough to house one row of suits or dresses) in the bedroom are housed above one’s head, in the space under the roof.

Right now, I am standing on a ladder peering into the dark triangle and wishing, no praying, for a simpler, easier geometry. A rectangle or even a trapezoid. Something without multiple measurements, numberless cuts, endless work. And if I ignore the studs that protrude into the space, 1.5 inches wide, 4 inches proud, if I ignore the various bulges and meanderings of slopes and angles, I can find a simple shape.

And yet what happens if the gaps aren’t closed, what happens when someone reaches up to store a diary, the Zippo lighter their uncle carried in the war, and it misses the floor? What happens is simple: the stuff falls. It falls a long way, all the way down to the foundation. It falls into a space where recovery, no matter how precious the loss, becomes too costly to undertake.

This is why all decisions are moral. Pencil that onto scrap plywood. They weigh time and ease versus utility and perfection. They ask: What matters most? And: What are you willing to sacrifice? And finally: Where do you draw the line?

Of course, there is its corollary: All measurements are flawed. Leaning into the dark triangle, one end of the tape measure hooked to the joist in the corner, the other smushed under the sloping roof, the inches I read are, at best, at approximation and, at worse, concrete proof that all human actions are imperfect, fallen, tinged with sin.

At the same time, I can see better why we say we take a measurement. That the verb implies the measurement is being given to us; that we are, in the act of repair and restoration, engaging in a dialogue, a chat with the wood and nails, with gravity and warping river water, between what we could do given infinite time and inexhaustible resources and what we can do in the here and now, with our timed lives and finite means.

And it’s ok to know that we fall short. Or more precisely that the miraculous need not be perfect. That one can build hope, repair loss and create a floor for a closet that will work, that will serve its purpose, do its job and that, in some way, this is all that can be asked of us — to care, to consider, to be present at the decision and account for its consequences.

By now, the plywood looks like a gigantic communion wafer an entire congregation has taken bites out of — my son, helping me, stands on the scaffolding and tries to wedge it into place. Here, house, take, eat, this is ”¦ no, not quite. My son is hitting it with his fist and it still won’t fit. One more, fracking cut. If it that doesn’t do it, I am done, I’m gonna start running and not stop until I hit the Mississippi.

Then it’s in. Just like that. I hand my son the nail gun and with the zeal (and X-box honed reflexes) of a teenager with more than a passing familiarity with the term, first-person shooter, he ensures that this piece of plywood will not be moving for a good long time.

Now it’s done and it’s time to step back. If you travel due north from this house, you’ll run into one of the houses refinished by a group of artists. It’s painted a blinding, eye-cringing yellow. Go northeast and you’ll run smack dab into the Brad Pitt houses. They form two sides of triangle. What I like about this is at the apex, the point between art for art’s sake and the unreality of celebrity-fueled concern is 5516 Dauphine, and inside it, inside a small triangular closet, is a piece of plywood flooring with two scrawled names on it that no one will ever see. It feels good. Real good.]]> http://5516dauphine.com/news.html#23 Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700 frozen music - wes & anne - News http://5516dauphine.com/news.html#21
“Is the house done?”, people keep asking. The short answer is not quite. Here’s where we are today:
Builders’ Risk insurance has been bought.
All structural work is complete, including rebuilding the back room.
Insulation is in.
The exterior siding has been replaced or repaired and painted.
A new back door has been installed.
Almost all of the original windows have been re-glazed.
The roof has been fixed and gutters hung.
The storm shutters have been found.
Front railing and columns have been stripped and primed.
All of the plumbing is in and the water turned on.
All of the electrical is in and the power was turned on in the house two days ago.
All light fixtures have been purchased and installed.
The HVAC system is mostly complete.
All new interior partitions have been built.
Lots of wainscoting has been stripped.
The interior has been completely sheet rocked and primed.
Kitchen cabinets are on order.
All appliances have been selected.

Still to do:
Get the property off the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority’s “blighted property list”.
Install the kitchen cabinets, counters and appliances.
Install all the bathroom fixtures.
Install radiant barrier in the attic.
Build a small platform for the HVAC condenser.
Straighten out a couple of piers.
Re-glaze the last 2 windows.
Prime and paint rest of the exterior trim, including windows.
Strip and refinish all floors.
Strip all interior trim, including rest of the wainscoting.
Select interior colors and paint.
Find and hang both front door and French doors for front façade.
Find and hang interior doors.
Site work — not sure what that will involve.
Sell it to someone who wants to come back to Holy Cross.

Next trip is March 5th to the 17th. We’ll also be there in April - 2nd to the 20th. We’re still welcoming volunteers!]]> http://5516dauphine.com/news.html#21 Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800 frozen music - wes & anne - News http://5516dauphine.com/news.html#20
He lived in the house for 25 years, moving there in the 1970’s when most other white families moved out of the neighborhood to Arabi. Houses were cheap enough then for “hippies like me”. He had bought the house from an elderly brother and sister, the Butts’s. We think their parents built the house around 1910, although Wes found out the original owner was a Confederate pensioner, so there may be another owner in there.

He told us about his dog Fat Head who was a legend in the neighborhood, biting almost everyone. That’s when he wasn’t “doing his business in front of my house”, as neighbor Dolores Wells told me later.

He also mentioned that his friend Mike (or Big Earl, depending on the mood of the moment) had the storm shutters for the house in his garage in Uptown. We had assumed they were long gone, stolen right after Katrina, and that we would have to replace them at considerable expense. However, shortly after the storm, Mike drove by the house and noticed that a pair of shutters had been taken down by someone who must have left just then, perhaps to get a truck. He grabbed all of them and took them back to his house, where they have remained since October of 2005. They are all back now at 5516, stored safely in our POD, waiting to protect the beautiful original windows through the next hurricane.

We went to hear Snakebite and two friends play at Dos Effes, a cigar bar 5 blocks from the apartment we’re renting. The first set was fairly traditional jazz, but the energy level shot up when another old friend, a trombonist, joined them. Here were four guys, all superb musicians, who were delighting in playing together again after too long a time. The sound was almost gleeful. We were eventually driven out by the cigar smoke, but will remember that night for years.]]> http://5516dauphine.com/news.html#20 Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800 frozen music - wes & anne - News http://5516dauphine.com/news.html#19
Which makes me think that no one could be so stupid in this new age to take our house. Perhaps I'm being foolish - New Orleans is, after all, a very different place. Almost un-American in some ways.

I got an email and a call back from the lawyer at the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority telling me that our file has been "set aside for 90 days after which it will be reevaluated". He also said in a tone that made me think he was fishing around for a compliment, "Don't worry, you won't be harassed". I didn't think we were doing anything harassable. Quite the opposite in fact. We remain vigilant, but still want to get ourselves off that list now. Kevin Mercadel is on top of the situation. At his suggestion, we have posted a Home Again project sign on the front of the house so that unscrupulous contractors who read the blighted property lists will know that the National Trust is involved in the project. That, apparently, can be enough to turn them away.

It's cold again here which may delay the painting job we hoped to start today. The window reconditioning — scraping and reglazing where necessary — is moving along well, and all of the exterior siding should be finished in the next couple of days. The dry walling is done except for one small section of the bathroom. The time of that crew was donated to us by the contractor who just completed Mr. Robinson’s house next door. That was a completely unexpected and extremely generous gesture that has saved us weeks of time.

Off to get muffins to eat with our neighbors Dolores Wells and Natalie Alexander as we watch the swearing in with greatest pleasure.]]> http://5516dauphine.com/news.html#19 Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800 frozen music - wes & anne - News http://5516dauphine.com/news.html#18
From January 6 to January 12, my son Christopher Gignoux, an architecture student, and I joined the 5516 Dauphine project. It was one memorable trip! What I liked about it was feeling that we were part of a larger community all working towards the same goal — getting people back in their homes and rebuilding the neighborhoods. In this spirit, the neighbors, including Dolores, who shared her electricity and water, and Mr. Herman, whose contractor volunteered a full day of sheetrockers, supported our project. In return, Wes and Anne helped them with labor and ladders. When we attended a Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, we could see that Wes and Anne were now part of the community. We also learned of the tremendous issues that residents were coping with, including post traumatic stress disorder, and other health issues and the annoyances of city government. (Were all those bridge raisings and trains blocking our passage into and out of the Lower 9th Ward a conspiracy as some suggested?)

There is a great network of people all over New Orleans available to help with anything from recycled building parts, tools, volunteers and reputable contractors. The Preservation Resource Center's Parts Warehouse is a place to pick up building materials, and the National Trust's staff provides advice on permitting, construction practices and contractors. The Green Store also has building materials, paint and one great ladies room — remember no plumbing at 5516 yet!

We couldn’t get through the day without some sustenance. Anne and Wes had scoped out some fine eating establishments including Capt. Sal’s for fried oyster po’boys and The Joint for ribs. (A more complete list is available on this web site.) Then there was the ice cream truck — along with the school bus, a sure sign that the neighborhood was coming back.

And when we needed a break, there was art and architecture at our fingertips. Brad Pitt’s project, Make It Right Foundation (http://www.makeitrightnola.org/), was nearby as was Global Green (http://www.globalgreen.org/neworleans/holycross/). Prospect 1, a city-wide art program, had one site a few blocks away — the Flame House. There were also installations (the window on the ladder pictured on this website) and local artists such as Dr. Bob.

Our work was not accident — free. There was the time that a well-meaning college student dropped a full can of paint from her ladder onto Mr. Herman’s car (we cleaned it all up!). I broke one of the original window panes while sanding. We had to redo some of the work of the volunteers. But we managed to feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of our week in spite of these setbacks.

We are so grateful to Anne and Wes for giving us this opportunity to help in New Orleans, and I suspect both Christopher and I will be back.]]> http://5516dauphine.com/news.html#18 Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800 frozen music - wes & anne - News http://5516dauphine.com/news.html#17
Wednesday, Jan. 14th was a particularly fine Red Letter Day. Both plumbing and electrical inspections passed. We got the sign off on our wiring so the walls can now be closed in, and after a wait at the Sewerage and Water Board, a meter was installed and the water turned on.

And then, later that same day, we were introduced to the dark side of trying to do a project in New Orleans. I got a call from our lawyer Miles Trapolin who told me that he had received an email from the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority (NORA). Our house is on a list of “blighted properties” and will be expropriated by the City. We had received no notice of this, and certainly nothing came up during the title search or at the closing. I thought Miles was joking, but no. Kafka comes to mind. This has triggered a flurry of phone calls and emails to NORA, and we’re pretty sure the house won’t be demolished when our back it turned. Or just taken from us and “given to a friend of the Mayor’s”, as someone said to us.

Our situation points to a much bigger issue here that has been an ongoing problem for all of the renovation efforts across the City. The various agencies don’t talk to each other. We have had both our Katrina Repair Permit from the Department of Safety and Permits and the Certificate of Appropriateness from the Historic Districts Landmarks Commission since mid October, but the NORA staff seem to have no way of checking those against their blighted property lists. Houses that are clearly in the middle of renovation are being demolished by mistake by the City every week. Everyone I’ve told our story to is not in the least surprised. This is a huge drag on private rebuilding efforts, and is one of the main reasons why so many people continue to be so discouraged here.

Stay tuned for an update.]]> http://5516dauphine.com/news.html#17 Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800 frozen music - wes & anne - News http://5516dauphine.com/news.html#16
- a starter list —

 Cochon, 930 Tchoupitoulus, Warehouse District (Cajun, Southern)
 Diana’s, also on Tchoupitoulus, Warehouse District
 Ignatius, 4200 Magazine Street, Garden District (New Orleans style)
 Casamento’s, 4330 Magazine Street, Garden District (oysters)
 Port of Call, 838 Esplanade, French Quarter (hamburgers)
 Mona’s, 504 Frenchmen Street, French Quarter (Middle Eastern)
 Bywater Bar-B-Que, 3162 Dauphine, Bywater District
 Elizabeth’s, 601 Gallier, Bywater District
 Coffee place on Dauphine near Bywater Bar-B-Que
 Rose Nicau (coffee), Frenchmen Street, French Quarter
 The Joint, 801 Poland Ave, Bywater, District (ribs!)
 Cap’n Sal’s, 3168 St. Claude, Bywater District (fried oyster po’boys)
 Upperline, 1413 Upperline, Uptown (contemporary Creole)
 Café Reconcile, 1613 Oretha C. Haley Blvd, Central City (lunch)

 The Spotted Cat, Frenchmen St.
 Tipitina’s, 504 Napolean Ave, Uptown
 Rock and Bowl, 4133 S. Carrollton Ave., Mid City]]> http://5516dauphine.com/news.html#16 Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800 frozen music - wes & anne - News http://5516dauphine.com/news.html#15
Wes and I have finally moved into a real house (as oposed to a tiny, dark room in a hotel) with a real internet connection and real closets. And a kitchen with a coffee maker - very exciting!

Am taking the morning off from the project to catch up on the communications and finance part of the project. That's my department as Executive Producer. Wes being the Technical Director.

The project is moving along well. We've done the mold abatement (disgusting job done by the 2 of us on Christmas Eve), completed all interior demolition, completely rebuilt the back room which will have the bathroom and laundry in it, almost finished rebuilding and siding the east wall (the one with the most huricane damage), stripped lead paint off most of the wainscoting, and built most of the new interior partitions. The electrician also finally showed up a couple of days ago and should be done today. The big milestone yesterday was getting a temporay power hook up. We have been running an extension cord from our wonderful neighbor Dolores Wells since before Christmas. We've accomplished a lot so far, but I still wake up at night stressing about how much needs to be done before we leave at the end of Jan.

All of this has been done with the help of an amazing number of people. They are: Joe Loya (Wes' oldest friend), his wife Lynn and two kids Ryan and Rebecca; my senior year Middlebury boyfriend Jay White, his wife Kathy and sons Jack and Matt; Rachel Russell of the National Trust's Washington Office, her sister and two other friends; retired lawyer Dick Buckman who keeps showing up and who has lent us a table saw for the month; a covey of high school kids doing a community service stint though Young Judea; 6 Occidental College students; two clinical phychiatrists I know from New York who showed up in inappropriate shoes and dress socks; my friend Roberta Gratz (author and member of the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission) and her nephew Jessie; and, as of last night, my nephew Peter Courtemanche. So many that I'm running out of project hats to hand out. A large part of my time has been spent managing all these folks, making sure everyone is happy and productive and foraging for lunch.

Wes and my infrequent arguments have revolved around the issues of restoration versus renovation. Are we doing a restoration of this historic structure suitable for a tour as part of an upcoming ICCOMOS conference, or are we renovating it into a house that makes sense for a family today? Do we build closets, thereby altering the interior volumes? How elaborate should the kitchen be? Do we cover up a disintegrated fireplace (one of 4) to make better use of a room? etc. etc. We're trying hard to balance respect for the building and making it work for the 21st century. We have to keep remining ourselves that this house is not for us.

There have been some bumps in the road, to be sure. Torrential rain on Sunday night (5"- yikes!) hit before we had a chance to finish the east wall and prime the new clapboard. Water ran down the inside of the wall, meaning that we may have to take off some of the interior plywood we put up to stabilize it so it can dry out. Not good.

Also, our valiant 1993 Plymouth Voyager van may truly be on its last legs. It gallantly carried us and LOTS of tools and stuff down here and was fine until New Years Eve when the brakes gave out. We got that fixed, but since then it has broken down twice. Last night on the highway, right where people took refuge from the Katrina flooding. We settled in to wait for the tow truck, admiring the quarter moon, thankful for the chance to catch up after a particularly hectic day of controlled chaos. We're not sure if the van is fixable, so V-ger may spend the rest of its days here. It wouldn't be so annoying except that the van has become our tool shed on wheels. We can't leave anything of value at the site over night, and we have lots of expensive power equipment, some of it borrowed, that needs to be taken care of. The logistics of this project are endlessly complicated and time consuming.]]> http://5516dauphine.com/news.html#15 Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800 frozen music - wes & anne - News http://5516dauphine.com/news.html#14
I have been thinking about him a lot, however. More specifically, about what he’s doing in the Lower Ninth Ward. In case you missed People Magazine or the January issue of Architectural Digest, he started the Make It Right Foundation after Hurricane Katrina to build “safe, affordable and sustainable” homes for displaced families in the most devastated part of the Lower Ninth. They are two or three blocks away from where the Industrial Canal’s levee broke and sit on land below sea level. The Foundation raised $30 million, and fourteen architecture firms — some local, others not — were invited to submit designs. Over time, 150 houses will be built. I’ve put a couple of photographs of the first 6 completed houses on the Photos section of this web site. You can also check out the Foundation’s web site — www.makeitrightnola.org — and make your own decisions about the design and the intent.

There is no question that Brad Pitt deserves an enormous amount of credit for rebuilding what was just a year ago scores of blocks of almost completely vacant land. The only things standing then were some live oak trees and the cement stoops of the destroyed, mostly modest wood houses. The silence was disturbing. This was clearly a place that was being ignored by the City’s rebuilding efforts. Brad Pitt has put his celebrity to good use here by shining a light on an ongoing, terrible story. His brightly painted, all new and sustainably designed houses are popping up now, and the sight is startling. So startling that they have become something of a tourist attraction, at least for people interested in sustainable design. I drive through the area a couple of times a week, and there are always small groups of people photographing, filming or just staring. The owners probably didn’t think they’d be living in fish bowls when they moved in.

We are taking a very different approach with our house at 5516 Dauphine, but I would argue that it, too, is a sustainable design project. After all, isn’t the “greenest” house one that already exists? This is a preservation project, so we are reusing as much of the original fabric of the house as possible, meaning that the only material going to the dump is the toxic, moldy stuff. We will be buying the doors and fireplace surrounds we need from the Preservation Resource Center’s Parts Warehouse, and we are maintaining the original floor plan as much as possible. This house was built long before air conditioning, so has a natural air flow that keeps it remarkably cool in the summer. Green architecture is not just about using new, energy efficient systems and “green” materials. It is also about recycling what already exists on the site and respecting the original builders’ understanding of the local climate and the site. The context is important too. Our house sits in the Holy Cross National Register Historic District on much higher ground than where the Make It Right houses are going up. In New Orleans, the closer you are to the Mississippi River, the higher the ground.

A final comment about the economics of these two approaches to “building green”. One of the goals of Brad Pitt’s effort is to sell the new houses for no more than $150,000. The hope is that the new owners will be able to put up 85% of that from insurance and government disaster funds. I have not seen the finances on the project, but I suspect that these houses clearly cost substantially more than that to build. They are being subsidized by the Make It Right Foundation’s fundraising efforts. I worry about the long-term economic sustainability of that model. In our case, we bought 5516 Dauphine, which is the same lot and house size as the Pitt houses, for $30,000. We hope to sell it for under $100,000, an amount that will cover our hard costs - materials, insurance and fees, the mechanical, electrical and plumbing, and our housing costs while here. The labor is all volunteer. While we can’t do this at the scale Brad Pitt is doing, we are taking a sustainable approach in the broadest sense of the word.]]> http://5516dauphine.com/news.html#14 Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800 frozen music - wes & anne - News