Bachelor Re-Pad

Despite having a handsome residence in the Garden District and houses abroad, this charming man-about-town has kept an apartment from his youth in the heart of the French Quarter. Partly out of nostalgia, partly because his friends have enjoyed and continue to enjoy so many holidays and festivities in its rooms, giving it up has become unthinkable.

Looking around one day however, he realized that after a couple of decades of inattention things had become a bit…well, let’s say faisandé. That wonderfully vivid word is used in old New Orleans parlance to suggest something overworn, which is a bit more genteel than its literal translation. Decorations Lucullus was flattered but challenged when he asked us to “do something for the place without tampering too much.”

On first study it was obvious – the wonderful scale and detail of the 19th century architecture, the highly personal and original taste of the owner, and his sentimental attachment to the contents had already determined the apartment’s tune and timbre. All we needed to do was find some fresh rhythms and pitch, to make an old song playful again. In the end what we hoped to achieve was the impression of a freshened-up interior, where even familiar visitors would be pressed to identify new notes.