Moderns on the Market

No less than three modernist houses on the market right now! If you know of any others, please comment below.

"House of the Future" (c. 1940). 6855 Canal Blvd. August Perez

$299,000

Office of the architect(1948). 1310 Esplanade.  L. F. Dufrechou.

$385,000

Louis J. Roussel Residence (1957). 734 Lakeshore Parkway. August Perez & Associates

$875,000

Modern on the Market :: Lakewood South

The James Trotter Residence at 5414 Bellaire Drive in Lakewood South was designed in 1973 by Nolan, Norman and Nolan architects. The spacious great room with upper gallery is flanked by walls of windows overlooking the pool, pond and spa. Both the two-story cabana and the main house have steep pyramidal double hip roofs which help cool the structures and channel the rain.*

The broken pitch roof (combining a steep central pitch and broader lower pitch) was developed by Louisiana creole builders, as they adapted a roof of Norman origins to our sub-tropical climate.** The lower pitch typically encompassed exterior galleries surrounding the interior core.

The Trotter House was recently renovated by architect Alfred "Pio" Lyons of Lyons and Hudson, architects of the National D-Day Museum. The Trotter-Lyons Residence is now on the market with Latter & Blum.  

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* Charles Colbert first used a pyramidal roof in his 1955 Milne Classroom. The Simon Residence on Octavia Street (1959) incorporates four pyramidal pavilions.

** A Creole Lexicon: architecture, landscape, people by Jay Dearborn Edwards and Nicolas Kariouk Pecquet du Bellay de Verton

"It's great to see the old place: A letter to the editor"

Saturday's Inside Out included a feature on the "Breaux Mart" house in Vista Park which has been recently restored by designer Marie Taylor.

Natural light shows off eclectic interior elements in Vista Park mid-century modern home  By Karen Taylor Gist

Thursday's letter to the editor from Lynne Breaux identifies the architect as Victor Bruno.  I've contacted him and we will be meeting later this week.

from the Times-Picayune

By Letters to the Editor

May 20, 2010, 1:29AM

Re: "Light show," InsideOut, May 15.

"They call it the Breaux Mart house because someone who owned the store used to live there..."

That someone was my father, Prosper Paul Breaux, founder of Breaux Mart, who, along with his wife, Adrienne Gaudin Breaux, and eight children lived in the Lake Vista home.

It was -- and now is again -- quite a house and was featured in The Times-Picayune when it was first built in 1960.

Thank you to Marie Taylor for her evocative modernization in keeping with the original vision and spirit of Victor Bruno, the architect, and my father.

Thank you to Karen Taylor Gist for capturing the specialness of our home.

Her article with its lovely photos and descriptions does much to ease the bleak memories of my last poignant post-Katrina view of the house.

To see it in its current reincarnation is a joy.

Lynne Breaux

Washington