Innkeeper Endorses Trump!!

Fool riding a goat

I thought we needed a boost in blog traffic so I wrote an interesting headline for today's installment.  I'm not really endorsing a future President Trump.  While we do have freewheeling conversations around the breakfast table every morning, and I don't necessarily discourage the topic of politics as much as curtail it, you'll never know my political leanings.  Your humble narrator is a cipher when it comes to my politics.  I have a long history of being a man of mystery and I don't want to let the cat out of the bag now. 

The image above comes from an ongoingly updated archive of medieval manuscript illuminations from Discarding Images.  Let it never be said that your humble narrator doesn't have a variety of variegated interests.

Now, what were we talking about?

The spirit of New Orleans

Our favorite painter, Whalehead King, who has executed (and I use that word justly) most of the original artwork in our inn, is working on a new masterpiece for La France Suite.  It's gonna be a real kinger-dinger!  I was in his studio tonight to get a glimpse of his sketches and the progress he's made so far on the 4'x4' canvas that's going to hang over the bedroom (non-working) decorative fireplace in La France Suite.

The fireplace used to work when our inn was built, but that was over 130 years ago.  There is a fireplace in every room in our house but none of them contain fires.  You provide the spark that burns in your heart when you fall in love with New Orleans.

We asked Whalehead King to replace the Degas print that's hanging there currently and he happily said he was able to figuratively blow the roof off this project.  Here is a photo of what the new original painting will be replacing:

Cotton brokers in New Orleans à la Degas

If you want to see a reproduction of that painting, you can stay at the Degas House, which is a wedding venue and bed and breakfast a block away from our inn.  If you want to see the original, you'll have to visit Ville de Pau, in France.  I read French better than I speak it but I don't read French all that well.  If you want to read the extensive English wikipedia entry on Pau, well, here ya go.  It seems like an interesting place, all things considered.  As interesting as New Orleans?  Regular readers of this blog already know the answer to that question.  I don't need to belabor the obvious.

If this is a bit of an itsy bitsy teeny weeny short entry today, it's because it's French Quarter Festival this weekend.  Ask any innkeeper in New Orleans and they'll be happy to tell you that this is their busiest month!  I don't know what other innkeepers do to keep themselves so busy when nobody is checking in or out because the house if full for the weekend, but it's a good excuse for me to write a short entry.  I know what Frau Schmitt and I have been doing and she says it's free time well spent.  She is usually right about these things.

So there you have it.  If you want to see original artwork, produced locally, so locally you can smell the turpentine wafting over our back garden, you know where to find us.  We're a block away from the Degas house and a mile outside the French Quarter.  Try getting a quiet night's sleep in the Quarter this weekend!

To all of our American friends who live in states that haven't had primaries yet, remember to go out and vote for your man when the time comes.  Oh, you can vote for a woman, too, this year so far if you are so inclined.  A little birdie told me that.  I'm not making any endorsements.   

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade
...where every day is a curated breakfast salon.

What is the Fleur-de-Lis?

A fleur-de-lis

A lot of people ask us what the fleur-de-lis stands for.  In New Orleans and, in fact, all over southern Louisiana, you'll see fleurs-de-lis everywhere.  I was starting to explain it to somebody when guess who showed up...

Lola!

Lola showed up at our house to show off her new fleur-de-lis tattoo, complete with accompanying Mardi Gras mask.

I don't have one and Frau Schmitt doesn't have one, but there are plenty of people in New Orleans who have fleurs-de-lis tattoos.  Ask any tattooist what the most popular request is and he or she will tell you without hesitating a moment: fleur-de-lis.

When you are writing an article about fleurs-de-lis, the most irritating part of the process is that spell check always automatically turns "fleur" into "flour".  Then, your humble narrator has to go back and replace the 'o' with an 'e.'  If I missed one in the editing process (such as it is), please forgive me.  You can tell that whoever wrote this software isn't from Louisiana.

New Orleans flag

The New Orleans flag naturally sports a fleur-de-lis.  Actually, it sports three of them.  No matter what you read, and I've done plenty of reading on the matter, there is no definitive or straight answer why there are three fleurs-de-lis on the New Orleans city flag.  It just is what it is and let's leave it at that.  Somebody thought it was a good idea at the time and that's the flag we're stuck with.  Long may it wave.

What's the city seal look like?  I'm glad you asked.

City seal, New Orleans, LA

No fleur-de-lis there.  This is a just a jumble of imagery.  Some of it makes sense, some of it is just there to fill up empty space.  I'm not going to go into it.  If you are in New Orleans, you'll rarely see the image above.  The person who sees it the most is the mayor and I don't know if he knows what any of it means.  That's the kind of city we live in.  It's a jumble you have to decode on your own.

The fleur-de-lis symbolizes New Orleans', and Louisiana's, close cultural ties to France.  The fleur-de-lis is an important component of the Acadiana flag, which was approved by the State Legislature as the official flag of Acadiana in 1974.  Acadiana is the region of southern Louisiana that is dominated by Cajuns, who are descendants of French Canadians, not of people directly from France.  Creoles are descended from the French.  Cajuns are descended from French Canadians.  Get it?  

It's easy for people from outside Louisiana to confuse Cajun and Creole cultures.  People do it all the time.  Get ready for a lecture if you do it on the street.  It will be a good-natured lecture.  No harm: no foul---until the fourth time you make the mistake.  Then, the lecture gets a bit more pedantic so you'd better pay attention and not make the same mistake again.  The worst that can happen is you won't be invited to the next crawfish boil.

It can all get pretty confusing if you aren't from around here.

Blurry Acadiana flag as seen by a drunk

People from France ask me about the fleur-de-lis.  "What does it symbolize?" they ask, genuinely puzzled.  When I tell them about the French connection, they get that part but they don't get why the fleur-de-lis represents France to Louisianans.  To them, the fleur-de-lis is not a symbol of France.  It's the symbol of the Bourbon monarchy, and rightly so.  That's what it was.

When New Orleans and Acadiana were first settled, the Bourbons ruled France and the king's flag was the nation's flag.  Since the French Revolution, though, the French have a new symbol and a new flag.  The current flag, which you may have seen before:

The Tricolor

To French people the fleur-de-lis is not a symbol of their country but of the ancien régime the Revolution of 1789 overthrew.  When a French person looks at all these fleur-de-lis tattoos, he or she thinks that he or she is looking at a bunch of people who support tyranny.  Anything is further from the case.  The people in New Orleans, and in Louisiana, who have fleurs-de-lis tattoos are generally the people who most support le joie de vivre and they most dearly cherish a devil-may-care attitude to human affairs.  Look around.  You'll see that what I say is true.

The symbol of France is not just the Tricoleur.  They also have Marianne.

From the French consul's letterhead

It's all rather tangled and complicated as things tend to be in New Orleans, which is a city rich in history and traditions that go back a long ways.  You needn't worry about it too much.  Like many tourists, you can just walk into a tattoo parlor on Frenchmen Street or Magazine Street and get a tattoo of a fleur-de-lis to show your love of New Orleans.  You won't be the first and you won't be the last.

You'll have the good memories you made in New Orleans and, when you look in the mirror at that tattoo, you'll remember them even more.  The most bestest memories are made in New Orleans.  They are the kind of good memories that last a lifetime.

Be a New Orleanian wherever you are.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade.

Life of a New Orleans Innkeeper

Our front porch

Nobody wears full length pants or long sleeves this time of year in New Orleans and it's only May.

The busy season is winding down for us.  People like to ask when our busy season is.  It's from the end of January until the 4th of July.  Then, things pick up again in the middle of September and we're busy until the end of November.  Then, we're busy around New Year's Eve.  Now you know.

A similar picture

We are continually blessed with good guests.  We hear a lot of horror stories from fellow innkeepers but, for some reason, we don't have any hair-raising tales to tell.  Ever day is a pleasant pattern of relaxed conversation in the morning and then people go out to have adventures in this magical city we call home.

Some people ask if we ever hold a wine tasting in the afternoon.  No.  We're in New Orleans.  I don't have to invent things for you to do.  You shouldn't be hanging around the house, anyway.  You're on vacation---I don't normally use this name for our city, but I'll say it--- Go enjoy the Big Easy.

A real Maltese firecracker stayed with us this weekend.  Remember, Tracey, that hot ticket who thought Tammie the Housekeeper doesn't exist?  Well, this Maltese firecracker was a hot ticket, too.  She was sharp as a pin, paying attention to everything.  It's guests like that who keep us on our toes, let me tell you.

I don't mean this in a bad way.  We like it when people notice what we do.  I don't think many of our guests give our suites the white glove test, though we wouldn't mind if they did, but if they do, we never hear about their findings.  

The Maltese firecracker said, "You two have thought of everything."  I wouldn't say everything.  The inn is still a work in progress and we are always adding lagniappe and fiddling with the details.  We've thought of a lot and we've been doing this almost three years, now.  We like to think we've gotten better along the way from opening day to here.  YMMV.

It's a big work in progress even if most of the pieces are already in place by now.

I'm beginning to detect a theme

We end today with a musical interlude.  Travis Trumpet Black Hill died last week while he was touring in Japan.  He used to play every Monday at the Ooh Poo Pah Doo Bar, a few blocks behind our house.  He was a very talented musician who will be missed in New Orleans and in our neighborhood especially.  He had a promising career ahead of him that was unexpectedly cut short under circumstances I'm not going to go into here.  



As you can hear, Trumpet Black could really play.  That clip was taken in Armstrong Park last year.  So far, 125 people (including your humble narrator) have viewed this clip on You Tube.  125?!?  Listen to that, man.

I saw his funeral procession this afternoon under the Claiborne Avenue overpass.  I didn't go to gawk because I don't like to do that.  I don't mind telling our guests about second line parades that are going on in our neighborhood, but when people ask if I know where there's going to be a jazz funeral, I usually say that I don't.  

One: I don't really follow those things.  Two:  Howzabout a little respect for the dead, eh?  If you stumble across it, that's one thing, but I don't want to feel like I just sold tickets to somebody else's funeral.

Living in New Orleans is already like living in an aquarium.  Nobody minds much that visitors watch everything we do and ask us a million questions about what it's like to be here.  I just showed an apartment to a fellow and, when I was done, I asked him when he'd be ready to move in.  "Oh, I live in Pensacola.  I was just wondering how much apartments go for here and what they look like on the inside."

He's staying in an illegal short term rental he found on Air B&B.  "There's no privacy but it was cheap and I'm meeting a lot of interesting people."  I'll bet.  He wanted me to show him the inside of our inn, "just in case for next time." Unfortunately, I had other things to do at that very same moment.

Live here long enough and you'll get used to things like this. 

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

Hard Luck in New Orleans

The young lady's name is Marianne

Today's post hasn't been vetted or approved by the French Consul headquartered in New Orleans.  I'm a big fan of Marianne.  We sometimes work with the French consulate to provide lodging for visitors and they sent us an email today that had that image available to download onto my virtual desktop, and, as always, her profile captivated me, so I cut and pasted it here for you to see so that I could write a long run-on sentence contrary to all the rules of good blog-writing that say that I should deliver short descriptive sentences to hold your attention and keep the text moving along, adding to the narrative, staying on topic, and being generally informative to attract search engine traffic and keep the reader entertained by providing the illusion that he or she is learning something about the city they are planning to visit.  So far so good.  Let's continue from here.

Our use of this image should not be considered an endorsement from the French government to stay with us.  Quite the opposite, it should be considered a swipe that I took to lead off this post.  We met the consul once.  He's very handsome and charming.  We made idle chitchat over champagne.  He probably doesn't remember us, nor should he.  We are as dull as dishwater.  Aside from that chance meeting and talk about the weather, we have no relationship with him, his office, or anything else really.  I just like Marianne.  As a New Orleanian, I find everything French fascinating.  Don't you?

Is there a single woman who symbolizes New Orleans?  There is, but it isn't Marianne and it makes me sad to say that.  I love the way her hair billows out from under her Phrygian cap.  In New Orleans, we have Margaret, who most people don't know, though she has a statue at Margaret Place, and we have Sophie Wright, who has a statue at Sophie Wright Place, and we have Oretha Castle Haley, who has a street named after her, and we have Mahalia Jackson, who has a theater named after her, and we have Joan of Arc, who also has a statue, hers at the beginning of the French Market, suitably enough.  Is there a single woman who represents the spirit of New Orleans?  No.  There a a lot of them, including every one you will pass when you walk down the street.  Say bonjour, or at least say hello.

In New Orleans, we also have a statue of Winston Churchill, of all people.  It's at the foot to Poydras Street, which few people visit unless they are trying to catch the Riverfront streetcar or they are staying at the Riverside Hilton, or they are lost.  No one ever mistook Winston Churchill for a woman.

The nice thing about writing a blog is that your humble narrator gets to write about whatever he pleases.  Being an innkeeper, your humble narrator gets to talk about whatever he pleases, too.  Sometimes, people ask a question, and I just launch off on a story that I find interesting that has more tangents than a kitten in a ball of wool.  No worries.  Nothing happens the way it is planned in New Orleans.  It's a city in which people will talk your ear off if given the chance.  I have a captive audience, so I just ramble on at breakfast, just like I do here, and nobody complains.  I know a lot of things.  If I can't explain them clearly all the time, it's because things are complicated in New Orleans.  It takes a while to sort everything out.  You need to stay for more than two nights.

It is time for a picture

It is time for a video!  Here is some film stock of New Orleans from 1940.  Things haven't changed much.  Frau Schmitt and your humble narrator recognize most of the places filmed in this old documentary.  If I may indulge in a little bit of French, "Plus ça change plus c'est la meme chose."



Life is beautiful when you live in New Orleans.  When you visit, you get a taste of what life can be like.  Laissez les bon temps rouler!    

There was never a canal on Canal Street. Don't believe everything you see on the internet.  Don't believe everything you read on the internet, either---even our reviews.  I add this last caveat because we cannot be all things to all people.  We strive to be good hosts to everyone who comes through our front door, but we aren't for everyone.  If you are looking for something comparable to a stay at the Roosevelt Hotel or the Ritz-Carlton on Canal Street, we offer a similar level of service, but not the same amenities.  We're headquartered in an old Creole mansion in Tremé, after all, not in a modern (for their time) skyscraper hotel building.  We are a boutique bed and breakfast inn in New Orleans but we can't claim to be a luxury brand hotel by any stretch of the imagination.  We do what we can.  We are located one mile from the French Quarter.  If you are thinking about staying with us, go back one sentence and read it again.  We are not in the French Quarter.  We are within walking distance, but our inn is in a different neighborhood.  

We do what we can, like Joan of Arc did, and what Marianne represents.  We do what we can to make your visit to this magical city we call home an enjoyable adventure.  It isn't Disneyworld, but it isn't meant to be.  We don't provide fantasy, but we are still living our dream, in New Orleans, the way it is meant to be.

We hope you'll visit us soon.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

La France Suite (Update)

Sitting room in La France Suite, La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast

I'm sure I've mentioned that the inn is an ever-evolving work-in-progress.  It's time for me to update our suite descriptions.  Not much has changed over the last year-and-a-half, but enough noteworthy things have happened that it's time to start afresh.  As Tammie the Housekeeper told me the other day while she was handing me my eyeglasses, "You and Frau Schmitt really seem to be hitting your stride in this innkeeping business."  

Tammie the Housekeeper

She held my glasses up to the light.  "How do you even see through these things?" she asked.  I see well enough.  That's why I get to describe the rooms on our blog.

Bedroom in La France Suite, La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast

La France Suite is the two rooms in the back of the house, one room after another.  It has its own private bathroom equipped with an antique claw foot tub perfect for a deeply relaxing soak.  It has a mounted shower head and curtains so that you can scrub off the modern way, if you so choose. 

Sitting room in La France Suite, La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast

The sitting room has a fainting couch, a velveteen-upholstered reading chair, a marble-topped table we found on the street and carried across New Orleans on our scooters,  a marble-topped dressing table, and a wardrobe that the cabinetmaker signed inside.  There is a statue of Joan of Arc on the mantle, and there is a slender collection of books pertaining to France that one of us finds interesting.

Bedroom in La France Suite, La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast

I don't saturate these colors after I take the pictures.  The camera doesn't lie.  The bedroom has a plantation-sized antique bed.  Plantation-size is B&B talk for full, one size down from a queen bed.  It's an antique.  Nobody can complain about sleeping in a bed made like this.  They don't make them like this anymore.

There is also a refrigerator stocked with a little wine, beer, soda, juice and water.  Help yourself.  If you need anything else, there's a corner grocery store two blocks down Esplanade Avenue toward the French Quarter.  There is a writing desk, television, free wifi, a bust of Napoleon, and there's a dresser dating from 1884.  There is also more Joan of Arc memorabilia.  She's the patron saint of Orleans, France, and she's pretty well respected in New Orleans, too.  

View from La France Suite balcony, La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast 

The balcony is an open gallery along the lakeside that ends in a little sitting area with a cafe table and two chairs.  The sun sets in this direction.  You can see the Superdome behind the telephone pole, and you can see it better at night, when it's lit up.  It's about two miles away as the pelican flies.  We're close enough to everything on our shady city street, but we're also far enough away.  

The corrugated metal building facing Barracks Street on the lot next door is Mr. Bourne's Muffler Shop.  He's been open at this location every day, except Sundays and Tuesdays, for more than 42 years.  The shop is an institution, like Mr. Bourne, himself.

There aren't (m)any people who still speak French in New Orleans, but Frau Schmitt is taking lessons.  We get to welcome a lot of international guests.  As for myself, I only know the three words I'm always thinking when I walk into this suite: Vive la France!

If you're thinking about going to Jaques-Imo's, well, this is more Jacobin.  Laissez les bon temps rouler!

A votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

La France Suite Revisited

St. Joan of Arc statue in La France Suite

It's about time to post some updates on what our suites look like.  We've made a lot of changes recently all over the inn, but the fewest changes have been made in La France.  

In case you don't know, this is one of our smaller suites, located in the rear of the house.  How small is smaller?  Well, it was the first suite that someone said is bigger than their apartment in Brooklyn.  It is two rooms with a private bath and a balcony.  It has twelve and a half foot ceilings.  It's pretty spacious.

Sitting room in La France Suite

Every room at La Belle Esplanade is painted a different color.  In La France Suite, the colors are those of the French flag: blue, white, and red.  Vive la France.  These are the only rooms that have white ceilings.  

There is an antique wardrobe, a couple marble topped tables, a (non-working) fireplace in each room, a writing desk, antique dressing table, and an antique dresser.  There is a fainting couch to catch you should you happen to swoon.  The bathroom has an antique claw foot tub equipped with a shower head.  The curtain rod is suspended from the twelve and a half foot ceiling.

Bed in La France Suite

The bed is antique, too.  In the bed and breakfast trade, we call it "plantation size."  Know what that means?  It means this is a full bed meant for two people.  It isn't as big as a queen size bed, but who's going to complain about sleeping in an antique like this?  Enjoy the experience.

La France Suite is located in the rear of the inn.  I know I already said this, but it bears repeating because it has a balcony that overlooks the fountain in the garden out back.  You can also see the Superdome from there, which is about two, maybe two and a half, miles away as the pelican flies.  At night, the Superdome is lit up in an ever-changing array of colors.  It's really something to see.  

By the way, I should probably be calling the Superdome the Mercedes Benz Louisiana Superdome, since the car company purchased the naming rights.  It's where the Saints play football.  The Pelicans play basketball in what was formerly the New Orleans Arena.  They just sold the naming rights to that a few weeks ago so here is its new official name.  Brace yourselves.  It is now called the Smoothie King Center.  It's kind of hard to say with a straight face, but Smoothie King is a local company with franchises throughout Louisiana and South Korea, of all places.  I've never been inside of one myself but they sell smoothies, 'natch, and I think powdered diet supplements, too.  

Of course, none of this has anything to do with what concerns you or I, so let's keep moving along to this article's end, shall we?

La France balcony

I was in the garden last evening as the sun was going down when I snapped a picture of the balcony in the back.  Notice how the back of the house is shaped like an arrow pointing to Heaven.  Excelsior!

If you are wondering what excelsior means, it's Latin for "ever upward."  It is the motto of the Great State of New York.  Louisiana's motto is in English: "Union.  Justice.  Confidence."  New Orleans' motto is Laissez les bon temps rouler.  I told that to some French guests recently and they remarked that it made perfect sense, even with my Connecticut accent.

We have a statue of St. Joan of Arc in La France Suite.  Frau Schmitt and I have taken a fancy to her, as has most of the City of New Orleans.  Here's a picture of the St. Joan of Arc statue in the French Quarter:

Joanie on the Pony

If I've just convinced you that La France Suite is a beautiful place to stay, please visit our website to see if it's available for the dates you are considering.  If it isn't available, our other suites are just as nice.  We look forward to meeting you.

A votre santé,

La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

P.S.  If you want to read our first description of La France Suite, you can find it here.

Bonus video:  St. Joan of Arc vs. Miley Cyrus.  While I don't exactly approve of the medium, I do approve of the message.  I'll take St. Joan any day over the other, of whose existence I am only vaguely aware from what I read in the newspaper. 

Springtime on Esplanade Avenue

View from La France Suite's balcony

Around this time of year, the ravens return to New Orleans the way the swallows return to Capistrano.  We know spring is just around the corner.  Can't wait for the temps to get into the 60s, then the 70s, then, you get the idea...

The fountain out back

Most mornings as I head out to the bakeries before everyone else in the house is awake, I hear the crows rustling and calling to each other in the oak trees that line our street.  In the afternoon, they move to the oak tree in back.  They like to drink from our fountain.

View from Le Pelican Suite balcony

As the sun sets in the west, we aren't sure where the crows go.  Maybe they wing their way Uptown.  Come morning, they are back again, pleasant company that adds to the neighborhood's charm.

You'll see them when you're here.

A votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

That Big Falstaff Sign

Falstaff sign during the day

As long as the power is on, you can see the Falstaff sign from the balcony of Le Pelican Suite.  You can't see the Superdome because of the palm tree, but you can't see the Falstaff sign from La France Suite because the pecan tree is blocking the view.  It's as if the two sides of the house have binocular vision.

We went to a party once on the top of the Falstaff Building.  The part up top is called the Falstaff Beer Garden.  It's one story with a mezzanine, and a deck right under the Falstaff sign.  The view up there is incredible.

Mark was there.  He was quick to notice that the Falstaff Beer Garden had run out of beer.  He said it was ironic.  Everybody switched to drinking wine.  Ironically, there was plenty of wine.  

I was around in front of the Falstaff Building.  More people know the Falstaff Building from North Broad Street.  Unless you live nearby, or unless you are visiting someone, there isn't much reason to go past the front of the Falstaff Building.  It's a homebody kind of a neighborhood. 

Front of the Falstaff Building

The Falstaff Building is tall.  It is hard to make out exactly who that statue on the roof is.   Luckily, the tall neon sign that can be seen across town offers a hint.  It's Falstaff.  He is a character from Shakespeare.  

The Falstaff Building is really tall.  From North Broad Street, it looms over everything around it.  

The view from North Broad Street

From the front of the Falstaff Building, the statue of Falstaff offers a toast in the direction of the French Quarter and Treme.  It is really something to see.  I won't say it brought a tear to my eye, but I do think it is a good reason to make a detour if you are in the neighborhood.

Falstaff Statue on the Falstaff Building

You never know what is waiting around the corner.  That is why we feel so lucky to live in New Orleans.

A votre sante, 
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

New Orleans Bed and Breakfast Soap

NOMA in NOLA

No one is going to say that any of the original artwork hanging in La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast is worth hanging in the New Orleans Museum of Art at the end of Esplanade Avenue.  It's not that the artwork isn't any good.  Some of it is very good.  Most of it, however, will probably be appreciated more once the artist is dead.  Such is the lot of most painters.  

A painting in Les Fleurs Suite

Delayed appreciation is not a problem, though, for those lucky few who practice the olfactory arts.  If you know the difference between toilet water and Chanel No. 5, you know the difference between run-of-the-mill hotel soap and handcrafted artisanal soap.

I mentioned the other day, in my usual rambling and roundabout way, that I happen to know a soap maker from New London, Connecticut.  She agreed to supply us with her product.  The first shipment arrived the other day.  Nothing bad has ever come out of Connecticut.  Just ask your humble narrator's wife.  She is usually right about these things.

If you're like me, you like to spend your time online reading reviews of artisanal soaps.  I found two that confirmed that I had made the right partnership.  One reviewer found Olive and Oud soaps an ode to joy.   Another reviewer felt like she had emerged from a bonfire in the snow.  

The soaps arrived from Connecticut, and we put a cube of each in La France, La Pelican, and the Clio Suites.  I'm not going to provide pictures of these eye candy soaps.  It's not that I forgot my camera, and it's not they aren't worth admiring with one's eyes.  It's just that they are best enjoyed firsthand, through one's nose and one's skin.  Neither words nor pictures can do them justice.  They deserve to be experienced in the flesh.

We were giving Leda and Richard a tour of the Clio Suite when they checked in this evening.  Leda immediately noticed the cube of Olive and Oud soap set like a jewel in the dish by the sink.  "This smells like heaven," she said and she held it up for Richard to get a whiff.

"It smells like New Orleans, just like I expected," he said.

Let's say you can't wait to stay at La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast to try our new soaps.  Maybe you stayed with us in the past and you want to be reminded of what it was like to enjoy a few days on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans.  Maybe you just want to buy some Olive and Oud soap for yourself, to get an idea of what it is like to wile away a few carefree hours and forget your worries in a beautiful setting.  Maybe you just want to dance and live life like nobody is watching.  You can buy Olive and Oud soap online.

New London is Connecticut's Whaling City.  After you visit New Orleans, I suggest you plan a vacation in the southeastern corner of the Nutmeg State.  The two cities have much in common: deepwater ports, good people, good music, good bars, and good soap.  

I know a painter from New London.  He gave me a picture he had painted with your humble narrator in mind.

Baelenius Rex!

Not all the art found in our New Orleans bed and breakfast inn is museum-quality, but all of it worth enjoying, like the house itself and the city we call home.

A votre sante.

A Bedspread Tour

A kind of rainbow

I was standing on the balcony in Les Saintes Suite.  When I turned around, it occurred to me that it's true: every room really is a different color.  

There are no hallways in La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.  Though it doesn't look like it from the street, the rooms are laid out like two double shotgun shacks, one stacked on top of the other.  Every room has at least two doors.  The stairwells are in the middle of the building.

Everyone comments on the paint job at our inn, both the outside and the inside.  When guests get the tour during check-in, they usually say something along the lines of, "It must have been fun picking all these colors."  Yes, but it didn't end with the walls and the ceilings.  The angels, as usual, are in the details.

Tammie, the housekeeper, follows me around.  The other day, she asked me, "Who taught you how to make a bed?"  As a former U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman, I informed her that I had been to school for it, twice.  I learned how to make a bed for when I was at sea, and I learned how to make a bed for a hospital patient.  I demonstrated on the corner of the bed in La Pelican Suite, making the bed one way, then another.

The bed in La Pelican Suite

"So that's why you never make the bed the same way twice," Tammie said.  "That's why I've been following you around.  That, and I want to make sure I know where your glasses are when you ask if I've seen them."

Absentminded and easily distracted, I do tend to leave my glasses lying around because I don't use them to see up close.  I take them off when I'm helping Tammie with the housekeeping because I don't need to wear them for her to pick up what I miss.  

Tammie is a very good housekeeper, but she's wrong about why I never make the bed the same way twice.  I am absentminded and easily distracted.  I get to looking around and admiring the room I'm in, and then I forget how I tucked the last corner, so I make it up as I go along.  I've been to school for this, after all.  Twice.  It will work out fine, I'm sure, just like our color choices.

After Tammie was done remaking the bed behind me, I mentioned that Frau Schmitt, who is usually right about these things, picked all the bedspreads to match the walls and the theme of each suite.  I wasn't involved, but it must have been fun to choose all the bedspreads.  It was fun for me to choose the things I was in charge of.

"Just look at this one," I said.

A rococo landscape

I smoothed out the wrinkles on the bed in La Pelican Suite.  "Look at this reverie of sub-tropical climates and ancient places," I said. "It's like a view of Acadia.  There's a view like this on the corner or Elysian Fields Avenue and North Bunnyfriend Street that looks just like that, across from the playground."

A real New Orleans street name

Tammie, impatient as usual, asked me, "You do know that I have work to do?"  

I thought we should take a tour of the bedspreads, instead, so we went across the stairwell to Les Saintes Suite.

Meditation in Creole paisley

Les Saintes is my favorite suite, though Frau Schmitt likes to say that La France Suite is my favorite.  She is usually right about these things.  

"Really look at this bedspread," I suggested to Tammie.  "If there is anything true about living here, it's that the city is full of motion like a drop of the Mississippi under a microscope.  There are saints in New Orleans and then there are the Saints."  We looked at the bedspread for a few moments in awkward silence until I added, "Jack Kerouac liked paisley."

"I don't know who Jack Kerouac is, but I'm pretty sure you're no Jack Kerouac," Tammie said.

I followed her downstairs to Les Fleur Suite.

A springtime medley

"This is our most romantic suite," I remarked to Tammie while she made the bed, "Minutes in New Orleans are like petals tossed in the breeze.  You don't know what wild flowers you'll find growing along the sidewalk, you don't know what you'll find around the next corner, you never know..."

"Do you mind if we go upstairs?" Tammie interrupted as she placed a praline between the bed pillows.  I didn't, so we walked up the stairs to the Clio Suite.

Tchoupitoulas mandala

Being an innkeeper, every day is the same and different.  A house is a collection of everything that has ever happened in it.  A historic New Orleans bed and breakfast is a comfortably eccentric home away from home.  La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast is a work in progress.  All the decor has been chosen with care.  There is a story behind everything.  Just ask.

Tammie doesn't seem to mind when I help with the housekeeping.  It may take her longer, but happiness makes good company.  "You're not going to spout off flights of fancy about this bedspread are you?" Tammie asked me as she set to work on Clio's bed.  

We still had La France Suite to tidy up, but I realized I had left my glasses somewhere.  "They're on the front porch," Tammie told me.  Taking her hint, I sat on the front stoop and mugged for the camera, out of mischief, waiting for our next guests to arrive.

Your humble narrator

It was 76 degrees on March 21.  I was wearing a tee shirt.  Frau Schmitt took my picture while I was waiting for our guests from San Antonio to arrive.  They are lovely young ladies who are staying in La France Suite tonight.  They were a pleasure to meet, and a pleasure to know, just like the couple from St. Louis who are staying in La Pelican Suite, and the the young lady from Ireland who is cheerfully gracious, and the chef from Pisa and his lovely bride who have been touring America for two weeks, and the medical students from Saudi Arabia who are moving to New Orleans in June.  

It is no wonder New Orleans innkeepers have dimpled cheeks.  They meet the nicest people.  Of course, everyone in New Orleans meets the nicest people.  There is southern hospitality, and then there is New Orleans hospitality.  New Orleans has a little bit extra.  

If we don't have any availability when you plan to visit New Orleans, there are plenty of other licensed bed and breakfast inns in New Orleans to choose from.  We hope we have room at our inn when you choose to stay in our fair city.

A votre sante,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

An Art House on Esplanade Avenue

One lane only

If you haven't been down Esplanade Avenue recently, the city is repaving the street between North Rampart and Moss Streets.  It's been an interesting public works project to watch from the front porch.  There is a hole in the pavement in front of our inn.  It looks like they were looking for a Cardiff Giant.

A hole filled in with sand

Tree trimming has already been done on the 2200 block of Esplanade Avenue and the oaks in front of La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast are safe.  Amply shaded on-street parking remains the rule.

When the work is finished, Esplanade Avenue will carry traffic differently.  Instead of two narrow automobile lanes on each side of the neutral ground, there will be one wide lane for cars, with a dedicated bicycle lane running along each side.  That and the pavement will be as smooth as Miss Alma's roux.  Most people are in favor of this change, but there a few people in favor of the status quo, as there usually are.

Remember the other day when I said that we don't get the Times-Picayune delivered to our house anymore and I had missed an important story?  Well, today, our neighbor, Johanna, told me I had missed something else.  I had missed an interesting letter to the editor.

It looks like a giant's grave from this angle

I happen to know the author.  Johanna and I rummaged through the recycling bin to find Friday's T-P.  We found it and I brought it into La France Suite where Frau Schmitt was straightening the pictures.  I asked her to guess who had his letter to the editor published.  "Probably some crackpot," she said.  She is usually right about these things.  

We were in La France Suite's bedroom.  Every room at La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast is a different color.  La France Suite is painted in the colors of the French flag.  The bedroom is red.  Over the mantle is a reproduction of Edgar Degas' famous New Orleans painting.

The walls are red like the blood of patriots

There is a reflection from the window across the room in the photo above.  It isn't 'Portrait of Estelle" that was purchased by the Delgado Museum.  It is "The Cotton Exchange."

Image courtesy of Edgar Degas

If your idea of excitement is reading the newspaper, this is the painting for you.  I've got something else in mind to replace it in the near future, but that is the subject of another post.  

What caught my eye wasn't the Degas.  I love to study it, and I pass the Degas House every day on my errands, and they also have a hole in front of their historic New Orleans bed and breakfast inn, and it really is a perfect composition.  A different painter came to mind.  It was Giorgio de Chirico.

"Love Song" by Giorgio de Chirico

I was looking at the corner of the mantle while I was talking to Frau Schmitt, at the bust of Napoleon positioned next to the tissue box.  It was a metaphysical landscape.

Bust of the emperor

"Able was I ere I saw Elba," I said.  New Orleans is the kind of city in which palindromes make up the patois.  Napoleon would not have lamented living here.  

What caught my eye was the plaster bust paired with a box of kleenex printed with a picture of a pier.  If I were a painter, I would have the subject to create a masterpiece. 

No matter what kind of frame of mind you find yourself in, you will enjoy staying at our inn.   The whole thing is a work in progress with new details being added and rearranged every day.  Every room is a different color.  Every suite has a different theme. We run an comfortably artistic New Orleans bed and breakfast that is full of curios and original work, as well inspiration for everyone who visits.

It is all in the details

Think about staying at La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast if you are visiting New Orleans.

A votre sante.