Les Fleurs Suite at La Belle Esplanade

Nothing is cookie-cutter here.  We don't like to call La Belle Esplanade a bed and breakfast because it isn't Grandma's house stuffed full of antiques and gewgaws and knickknacks and puffinstuff.  Life is too short to live in a shabby museum.  Les Fleurs Suite at La Belle Esplanade is unique, the way everything about La Belle Esplanade is unique.

We prefer to call La Belle Esplanade a tiny artisanal hotel.  The design and decor are unique, the service is personalized, you'll visit New Orleans like you belong here.  You do belong here.

Words to live by.

Unlike any hotel.

All this and more.  Visit New Orleans like you belong here.

Les Fleurs Suite at La Belle Esplanade is on the ground floor of the house.  It has two main rooms separated by pocket doors that slide into the walls.  It's pretty cool.  

A view of the sitting room in Les Fleurs Suite.

The private sitting room is the perfect place to look up historical things in our neighborhood and hatch plans for the day's adventures.  Both the sitting room and the bedroom have decorative fireplaces that are original to this 1883 mansion.

The private bath is equipped with an antique claw foot tub that has a shower.  There is a private porch that faces Esplanade Avenue.  Les Fleurs Suite at La Belle Esplanade is in the front of the house.  

All our suites have all the amenities you would expect from a boutique hotel.  One of the amenities that you can't get from any other hotel, though, is the authentic experience of staying in a real New Orleans neighborhood.

Privacy on the porch behind the wild ginger.

When you sit on your suite's private front porch, tucked behind the wild ginger bushes, you'll live what it's like to be in love with New Orleans.  When people walk by, they'll say hello.  They'll compliment your house.  You don't have to tell them it isn't your house.  La Belle Esplanade is the headquarters for your New Orleans adventures.  Be a New Orleanian.

Everyone thinks we speak French in New Orleans.  "Les Fleurs Suite" at La Belle Esplanade means The Flower Suite.  We try to make our suites as interesting as this wonderful city we call home.  You never know what pleasant surprise you'll find if you pay attention.  Good memories are made every day in New Orleans.  The best memories are made at La Belle Esplanade.  

Back-to-back winner of the TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice Award, La Belle Esplanade has been named the #2 small inn in the United States and #16 in the world.  Go to our website to read more about Les Fleurs Suite and more about La Belle, itself.  We live in a beautiful mansion in a very, very interesting part of New Orleans. 

A typical breakfast at La Belle Esplanade.  Good food and good conversation.

Some updates to Les Fleurs Suite

The sitting room in Les Fleurs

I take pictures with my phone so they aren't usually very good.  They're good enough so that you get an idea of what the inn looks like, but it looks much better in person.  I happen to like this strategy, though a lot of professionals tell me I should have better pictures on our website.  I'm starting to think they're right.

One thing I don't like about my phone pictures is that it's very hard to get the color right.  The house is so saturated with color that it tends to dominate, or it just doesn't come out the way it really looks.  That's one argument to get somebody in here with a good camera.

Our opening photo is what the sitting room in Les Fleurs Suite looked like when we opened for business.  That antique couch hasn't been there for awhile.  Also, I've been making some additions to the décor this month, particularly to Les Fleurs Suite, but more extensively to Les Saintes.  Let's just discuss Les Fleurs today.

We like to name everything in the house in French.  Why?  Because visitors think that people in New Orleans still speak French.  Surprise!  Nobody speaks French here any more, but we can pretend, can't we?

Sitting room in Les Fleurs

I'm sure a professional can frame these shots better than I can.  I took this sitting in the leather arm chair in the opposite corner.  I'm trying to remember as I write this, are the walls pink or purple in that room---it's a combination of the two.  The ceiling is blue.  I know that much.

The original theme of Les Fleurs Suite was, if you don't speak French, flowers.  It still is, but we've added a bit more Mardi Gras to the mix.  We've hung some branches from the ceiling and festooned them with Mardi Gras beads.

One view

 

Another closeup

You see what I mean about the colors in these photos?  The walls aren't peach.  I know that because the bedroom is peach, or coral if you prefer.  

Anyhow, it's a very interesting suite and a very interesting experience.  I'm rather pleased with the effect.  Frau Schmitt isn't entirely convinced, and she is usually right about these things.  We're going to let things be for awhile and see what our guests have to say about it.  The first ones will check in this afternoon.

We have a few days when the inn will be empty (so far) in September.  I'm going to have a professional photographer come over and see what she can do.

We hired a professional photographer once, before we opened, and we couldn't use any of the pictures he took.  His pictures were all details, like this:

A detail shot

He was very proud of that picture.  It's an apple snail shell that's part of the driftwood sculpture in our dining room and it caught his eye.  Jiminy Cricket, man!  I want people to know what our inn looks like!  Leave those artsy compositions at the door!  He and I didn't get along so I started taking pictures with my phone.  That's how it began.  That's why all our online photos lack imagination---I don't have any.

I suppose the best way to see what we're up to is to make a reservation with us if you're thinking of visiting New Orleans.  We'll be happy to meet you.

In the very near future, don't hold your breath, I'll be giving you a glimpse of our newest addition.  Les Saintes Suite is no more.  It's been totally renovated.  It's now called Les Pêches.  If you don't speak French, that means fish.  It's gonna be a real ringer dinger!!

Until then,
À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast. 

We Live on a Beautiful Street in New Orleans

The park across the street from our house

I was looking over the list of all the B&Bs in New Orleans.  The vast majority of them list Bed & Breakfast in their names.  Second-most popular is Inn.  Then there is House, Maison, and Courtyard.  There is one Quarters, and one Row.  Ours is the only one that is just a name without reference to the property itself: La Belle Esplanade.

I never noticed this before.  Our boutique New Orleans inn [a little keyword stuffing there] is named after our street.  We aren't selling  rooms, even if that's what you think you are buying when you make a reservation.  We are selling our neighborhood.  We love where we live.  It always makes me happy when our guests stroll around the neighborhood.

Mind you, I am going to say it again, just as I try to say it as frankly as I can on our website, we are not in the French Quarter.  If you want to stay in the French Quarter, there are places a scant mile from our house where you can stay.  If you do stay in the French Quarter, we hope you'll take a stroll up Esplanade Avenue.  Make sure you take a picture of our house.  Everyone else does.

Esplanade Avenue is known as the Creole St. Charles Avenue.  It isn't as long as St. Charles Avenue, and there isn't as much to do, commercially speaking, as in the neighborhoods around St. Charles Avenue, but Esplanade Avenue, and Tremé, have their own delights.

A house on Esplanade Avenue

An esplanade, according to Webster's, as they say, is a level open stretch of paved or grassy ground, especially one designed for walking.  Everywhere else in the world, esplanade is pronounced 'ess-plah-NAHD."  In New Orleans, where everything is different, it is pronounced 'ess-plan-AID."  If you are looking to pronounce our name correctly, we are La Belle Esplanade on Esplanade Avenue.

As a flaneur, I always appreciate an esplanade.  According to Webster's, a flaneur is an idle man-about-town.  I don't know how much I agree with that, no matter how much I resemble that definition.  Like Charles Baudelaire, I prefer to think of a flaneur as someone who makes it his occupation to walk the city streets, getting caught up in their ephemeral scenes.

Charles Baudelaire

If you stay in our Les Fleurs Suite [see the link at the top of this page] you'll find a copy of my favorite book by Baudelaire.  It's a charmer titled, "Les Fleurs de Mal."  What's that in English?  "The Flowers of Evil."  Love poems.  

Tremé is a fascinating neighborhood, even though it isn't the ritziest in the city.  It's predominantly working class, though that is changing.  The new Lafitte Greenway will open later this year.  It's going to change a lot of things in the neighborhood, not just the demographics.  For now, though, behind our house are two famous restaurants, a lot of history, and a ton of details piled up over the centuries.  That's enough.

Up the street from us, toward City Park, there are more restaurants and coffee shops, two grocery stores, a wine bar, and a laundromat. If you need to do laundry during your stay, we have a laundry room on site.  It costs a $1.25 to wash and $1.25 to dry.  We'll provide the detergent if you need it.

Let's end with a little Baudelaire, shall we?

Correspondences

Nature is a temple in which living pillars 

Sometimes give voice to confused words; 

Man passes there through forests of symbols 

Which look at him with understanding eyes.

Like prolonged echoes mingling in the distance 

In a deep and tenebrous unity, 

Vast as the dark of night and as the light of day, 

Perfumes, sounds, and colors correspond.

There are perfumes as cool as the flesh of children,

Sweet as oboes, green as meadows

— And others are corrupt, and rich, triumphant,

With power to expand into infinity,

Like amber and incense, musk, benzoin, 

That sing the ecstasy of the soul and senses.

-Translated by William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade, a New Orleans bed and breakfast.

Les Fleurs Suite (updated)

Antique bed, Les Fleurs Suite

I forget whose idea it was to name everything in French.  When we're talking amongst ourselves, we always call it Flower.  "Remember those nice people who stayed in Flower?" Frau Schmitt will ask me, and I know exactly who she means.  

Our guests who get into the spirit of things call this Les Fleurs Suite, and they should.   That's what it says on our website.  It's this suite and it's one of our favorites.  The sitting room is pink and the bedroom is peach.  I forget whose idea it was to pick those colors but, with the blue ceiling and the all the antique furniture, it has a calming effect.  It's on the ground floor, which makes it Tammie the Housekeeper's favorite suite.

View from the front porch

As usual, I took all these pictures with my phone.  Les Fleurs Suite has its own private front porch that faces Esplanade Avenue.  You get to the porch through the front bedroom window that goes down to floor and up into the ceiling.  The bed frame used to be full-sized.  It used to be in Clio , but we got a new bed for up there.  We took this bed to the restorers and they turned it into a queen.  Les Fleurs Suite has a queen-sized bed - no need to call about that.   The only other suite with a queen bed is Clio.

Sitting room, Les Fleurs Suite

We added a new leather love seat to go with the velvet chair in the sitting room.  The sitting room also has the leather chair that matches the love seat.  You can't see it in this picture because I was sitting in it.  Even with the antique wardrobe and dresser, there's plenty of room in this first room of the suite.  

As for the second room, the bedroom, it has plenty of space in it, too, even with the antique queen bed and the other antique furnishings.  We already saw a picture of the bed, here's what it looks like to look from the bedroom through the sitting room:

Bedroom view of the sitting room

You'd think I took these pictures at different times of day on different days, but the light is beguiling in our house, especially when you use your phone to take the pictures.  There is a private bathroom off the bedroom, equipped with an antique claw foot tub in case you want to take a soak.  The tub is equipped with a shower head - no need to call about that.  The hand sink, however, is in the bedroom because it's more European that way.

The reason this is called Les Fleurs Suite is because of the botanical artwork on the walls.  Some are photographic prints.  There is a paper mache flower from a Mardi Gras float.  Over the mantle in the sitting room, there are some original oil paintings by a local artist we like to collect.  

Two private rooms, a private bath, and a private porch that looks out over Esplanade Avenue.  The wild ginger in front of the porch is coming back after almost dying from cold last winter.  Esplanade Avenue is a beautiful street and the front porch presents an interesting and ever-changing view.  

It's a main street, but it isn't terribly busy for a main city street.  Cars go by and people walk by, too.  The tour buses and bicycle tours stop across the street to snap pictures of the house.  We live in a kind of landmark: most colorful house on Esplanade Avenue.

The best way to make a reservation is online through our website: labelleesplanade.com.  There's no need to call unless you have questions.  In that case, we'll be happy to answer them.  We're not always home though, so email is generally more efficient.  

I'm not trying to discourage you from calling, it's just that we put everything up on our website.  We don't think anybody likes surprises.  When somebody calls, they have to wait for me to pull up our website to check availability or to check our policies.  

Tammie the Housekeeper

Tammie the Housekeeper is a whiz with the cleaning, but she prefers not to have anything to do with computers.  That's why she never answers the phone.  The answering machine can take a message as well as she can.  She's usually busy getting the suites ready, stocking the complimentary refrigerator, making sure ever suite has coffee, tea, a bag of Zapp's potato chips, and putting a praline on the pillow.  We wouldn't be as successful as we are without good housekeeping.

We look forward to meeting you.

A votre santé,

La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

Before and After: Les Fleurs Suite

The rear of the house

I say it on this blog and I say it in person when people check in: our inn is a work in progress.  Come back in a year and you'll recognize the place, but it will be subtly different.  For the better.  

We've been redecorating a few of the suites, as well as making additions to the curios in the lobby and hanging new artwork here and there.  This post is about Les Fleurs Suite, which is located on the ground floor.  It still has a queen bed, but it's a different queen bed, now.

The old bed in Les Fleurs Suite

The old bed in Les Fleurs Suite was the only queen sized bed we had.  It was a beautiful bed, and it was the reason we called this one the "honeymoon suite."  Not to make the story too complicated, but when we started refurbishing the B&B we moved the bed from Les Fleurs to Clio and we recently decided to replace the bed in Clio with another queen.  The bed in Clio was a beautiful antique but it was full sized.  We sent it off to the craftsmen and they made it a queen.  They did a very nice job and we moved it back to Les Fleurs.  Have you got all that?

The new bed in Les Fleurs Suite

They don't carve headboards like that anymore, at least not very often.  The craftsmen did a beautiful job. The bedroom has a different vibe to it now.  It is just as romantic and just as fitting for a honeymoon or a romantic getaway.  We really do keep a beautiful boutique inn, if I do say so myself.  We are very proud of it.  When we change something, we strive to make it for the better.  

I like to fret and fritter over how much things cost.  Not that I'm cheap, mind you.  I prefer to think of myself as frugal.  Frau Schmitt likes to say, "Any money we spend on making the B&B better is an investment that will make people happy to stay here."  She is usually right about these things and she is right about this one.

The old couch in the sitting room

We only rent two-room suites.  When you reserve a room at La Belle Esplanade, you get a bed room, a sitting room, a private bath and a private balcony.  Since Les Fleurs Suite is on the ground floor, you get a private porch.  Nobody complains about the view.  

When we bought the house, we inherited a lot of antique furniture which we kept.  The couch in Les Fleurs was one of those pieces.  It wasn't very comfortable.  Nobody complained.  After all, how many chances do you get to lounge on a hundred thirty year old couch, but we never really cottoned to it.  So, this spring, we upgraded into something a bit more moderne.

New couch in Les Fleurs Suite

That's real leather upholstery on the love seat.  Velvet on the chair.  I was sitting in a red leather chair when I took this picture with my phone.  It's kind of swanky.  The tabletop is antique white marble. 

So, if you reserved a suite on our old website, be warned: you may not be getting the rooms you expected.  Our inn is a work in progress.  You won't have anything to complain about because every change we make is with an eye toward making things more comfortable.  Home is where the heart is.

Frau Schmitt and I have stayed in exactly one bed and breakfast in our lives, aside from our own.  It was nice, but the owners had been in business for a long time.  Their heart wasn't in it anymore.  They were done, winding down.  We are winding up. We are enthusiastic about making the best experience we can for you, our guests.  That is why you choose a B&B over a chain hotel, isn't it?  Let us do our job.  For us it is a kind of serious play.  You wouldn't want to stay with us if it was only a job.  A job is what the folks at the Holiday Inn have.

Speaking of Holiday Inn, this is what it is like, for us, to run a B&B: embedding is disabled by request.  Click this link to see what I'm talking about.  In New Orleans, every day isn't like Mardi Gras, but every day is like the 4th of July.  Say it with firecrackers.

If you are thinking about visiting New Orleans, we know a very interesting place where you can stay.

A votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.
P.S.  I alluded to it above, but we have a new website.  It is labelleesplanade.com.  See you there.

How to effectively market a New Orleans B&B

We're in the orange house

I was contacted by a reporter the other day.  Someone referred her to me to do an interview about how to effectively market a bed and breakfast.  After she told me what she was up to, all I could say was, "Whoever you talked to was pulling your leg."  Turns out it was her masseuse.

Luckily, it wasn't serious journalism.  She is an internet freelancer who specializes in writing lists of top 5 amazing tips.  I love to read those, don't you?

I told her that I just happened to have an expert in the house.  I turned over the phone to Tammie the Housekeeper, who was less than pleased to be given a new chore.  She played along anyway.  It gave her a break from making the bed in Les Fleurs Suite.

Tammie the Housekeeper

"How can I help you?" Tammie the Housekeeper asked in her best phone voice.  The reporter asked if we advertise on any online booking engines.  "We do," Tammie replied.  

The reporter said, "I saw your listing on grabonescapes.co.nz, on hotelplanner.com, on roomstays.com, and on bestonlinehotel.com.  That must take a lot of coordination."  Tammie the Housekeeper looked at me.  I shrugged.  I'd never heard of any of these sites and I'm in charge of these things.  I did check them out afterward and we are listed on them.  Who knows why?  I suspect we are just chum to fill up the pages.  Put in your dates and the answer comes up No Rooms Available. Small wonder.  It must make us look very busy. 

Their descriptions of our inn are somewhat accurate.  We are located in New Orleans.  One of us is bilingual, but they don't say what languages we speak.  If you speak anything but English, German or a tiny bit of slow French, we'll only be able to communicate through pictures and gestures.  While playing charades can be fun, it's going to make for a long weekend for everyone involved.  Tammie the Housekeeper said, "Oh, it's no work at all."  No point in lying.

It's the house in the middle

We do list our inn with two OTAs, as I've recently learned that they're called.  It stands for Online Travel Agents.  Now you've learned something, too.  I toss it into casual conversation all the time now.  The OTAs we're partnered with are booking.com (more fondly referred to as booking.yeah, hereabouts) and with bedandbreakfast.com and, by extension, expedia.com.  I think most people call that last one just expedia.  At least that's what I do.   

The reporter asked a few more questions and Tammie the Housekeeper gave some more honest answers.

"What do you find is the most important thing you do online for marketing your brand?" the reporter asked.  Tammie the Housekeeper got a smug grin on her face as she leaned back in my chair.  "It's our blog," Tammie the Housekeeper said.  "All our success comes from our blog." Then she stuck her tongue out at me while she placed her thumb on her nose and waggled her fingers in my direction.  

That isn't entirely true.  All our success comes from running a tidy and tasteful boutique inn in a beautiful neighborhood that is within walking distance of the usual tourist destinations while being in a neighborhood that offers much, much more than people expect.  I see that on the AARP travel site we are rated 4.6 out of 5, whatever that means.  I should google our name more often to find out what people are saying.  Did you know we have five reviews on Yelp?  They're all 5***** stars, too.  You can watch our video there.  I think it will be up until October this year.  If you're trying to link to it after then, I'm afraid you'll be out of luck.

"What's the real secret to your success?" the reporter asked.  Tammie the Housekeeper got serious.  She looked me right in the eye and said, "Frau Schmitt."  She's right of course.  I say that all the time.  Frau Schmitt is too modest and she would disagree.  This is one of the rare times when Frau Schmitt would be wrong, and she is usually right about these things.

If you are thinking of staying in New Orleans, we're the orange house on Esplanade Avenue.  There is only one.  If you choose to stay with us, make sure you say it was because of our blog.

Our front porch

A votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

Honeymoon in New Orleans

Pocket door in Les Fleurs Suite

We always call Les Fleurs Suite, "The Honeymoon Suite."  While all of our suites are romantic in their different ways, Les Fleurs is romantic romantic, if you know what I mean.  We don't call it Les Fleurs for nothing.  It's full of flowers.

It always makes me happy when people come from New York City and marvel at how much floor space they have for the length of their stay.  It is bigger than their apartment.

The other day, I was puttering around The Flower Suite with my camera, which also happens to be my phone.  I thought I should take some new pictures.  Coincidentally, today, someone asked me about Les Fleurs Suite.   

I found a use for those photos I was going to throw away.

Front window curtain

It's very dark if you don't open the curtains.  Some people like it that way.  The front window leads to a private porch that faces Esplanade Avenue through a thicket of wild ginger.  It is a nice to sit and watch the easy parade along Esplanade.  

View from the hall door.

There are white Christmas lights around the pocket doors and in the bed canopy.  I didn't take a picture of that, but you can use your imagination.  It is very romantic.

I haven't mentioned flowers yet, but there are some.  The whole two-room suite has a botanical theme.

Remember I took these with my phone

There are flowers everywhere you look.  I chose to look over the mantle in the sitting room because it always makes me smile to look at these original oil paintings.

Mantle in Les Fleurs Suite

There are plenty of reasons to stay at a bed and breakfast, but a big part of it is the bed.  The bed in Les Fleurs Suite is a beautiful bed.

I didn't take any pictures of the private bath, but it has an antique clawfoot tub.  A lot of people ask if there's a shower.  There is.  

It is a cozy place and I don't mean it the way that Grandma's house is cozy.  I mean cozy in a romantic way.  It's like something out of a movie.  

To all the honeymooners, past, present and future,

A votre sante,
La Belle Esplanade Bed and Breakfast.

What's It Like To Be An Innkeeper?

Gina Lollobrigida

When you are an innkeeper, you meet a lot of friends.  I can't speak for the people who staff the five-star hotels in the French Quarter, or the shiny towers around Canal Street.  As a part of an army of three, Frau Schmitt, Tammie, the housekeeper, and myself, I can only speak for the staff of La Belle Esplanade.  We meet a lot of friends for too short a while.  

Our Gina Lollobrigida

We run a New Orleans bed and breakfast on Esplanade Avenue.  It is more of a boutique operation than you'll find in the Central Business District.  We meet a lot of interesting people over the course of a month.  Good memories are made on Esplanade Avenue. 

A New Orleans bed and breakfast

We have five suites.  Each suite has a private bath equipped with an antique claw foot tub and a shower head with exceptional water pressure.  The hot water tanks are in the attic.  

Each suite also has two other rooms.  One is a sitting room.  The other is a bedroom.  There is a refrigerator stocked with local sodas, local beer, wine, juice and water.  There is a corner grocery two blocks away that has anything else you'll need.  There is a flat screen TV and free wifi.  We put pralines on the pillows.  Each suite has its own balcony, except Les Fleurs Suite.  It has a front porch that faces Esplanade Avenue.  

I haven't mentioned the furniture because every room is a different color and every suite has its own name: La Pelican, La France, Les Fleurs, Les Saintes, and Clio.  Each is comfortable and unique in its own way.

The bed in La Pelican Suite

We live in a very nice part of New Orleans. 

Whether you visit New Orleans for one day and two nights, or two days and three nights, you'll only get a taste of the city, and I'm not talking about the varied breakfast that Frau Schmitt whips up every morning.

Ready for breakfast

You'll want to come back to New Orleans even if you stay seven days and eight nights.  There is too much to discover.  There are more good memories to be made.   

What's it like to be an innkeeper?  We don't travel much.  We have both been all over the world, but we are happy where we are now.  There is too much to discover.  It's not as easy as we make it look, but it's probably not as hard as you think.  Everything I learned, I learned from watching Bob Newhart.  Ask Frau Schmitt.  She is usually right about these things.

The back garden at La Belle Esplanade

Last night, two of our guests dined at Santa Fe Restaurant, up the street.  A famous actor was sitting at the table next to theirs.  It wasn't Bob Newhart and it wasn't Gina Lollobrigida, but you never know who you'll bump into on Esplanade Avenue.  When you are an innkeeper in New Orleans, you hear and share a lot of stories.

The coffee table in Les Saintes Suite

A votre sante,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

Is New Orleans America's Best City?

Life is good in New Orleans

You never know who you'll run into on Esplanade Avenue.  Luck is always a lady in New Orleans, unless it's Luck's brother.  You meet the friendliest people in New Orleans.

Governor Derbigny

I was talking with a couple visiting from Australia who used to live in the States.  Now they're touring the rest of America.  I mentioned that New Orleans is like no where else in Louisiana.  I ventured so far as to say that it is like no where else in America. 

"We heard that where we used to live, too," the lady said.  Where did they used to live?  Salt Lake City.  All I could say was, "Touche."  The pot never called the kettle white.

La belle de l'Avenue d'Esplanade

They were driving from Utah to Philadelphia by way of New Orleans.  "We stayed at a Motel 6 in Lafayette last night," the lady's companion told me.  "It's been all Quality Inn and Day's Inn and Holiday Inn and a string of no-tell motels and HoJos.  For New Orleans, we thought we should make it special."  Good choice.  The best New Orleans bed and breakfasts are on Esplanade Avenue.  I can recommend one in particular.  

There is magic in a New Orleans rain the way there is magic in New Orleans sunshine and New Orleans shade.  There is just something about New Orleans.  Je ne sais quoi.  

Les Fleurs Suite bedroom

I showed them their bedroom.  "C'est magnifique." the lady said, swept up in the romance of the suite.

"I thought you were Australian?" I said.

She was caught up in the moment.  When in New Orleans, do as New Orleanians do.  Laissez les bon temps rouler.

St. Joan of Arc

This particular city is an ideal setting, but it is the people that make New Orleans America's best city.  Both the people who live here and all of the other people who love it.  Be a New Orleanian, wherever you are.  

When you are in New Orleans, think about staying at La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

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.