SUCCESSFUL DEBUT!
Natchez International Crepe Myrtle Festival
I was convinced that the sublime beauty of the Crepe Myrtles in Natchez was worthy of a festival. So, what began as an idea I had in July of 2018, was realized with the first ever Natchez International Crepe Myrtle Festival on June 21-22, 2019.
We Celebrated the Blooms! Natchez has more than 10,000 Crepe Myrtle Trees and counting! They're breathtaking! We had a lot of enthusiastic help! Our wonderful committee included many of the Adams Country Master Gardeners and we were fortunate to gain sponsor support.
Note in the above photo from last summer, we are with the Visit Natchez Team: Stratton Hall and Jen Combs starting from the left from our first meeting! We are already looking forward to next year!
Enjoy these stories. You'll also find more details on my blog and on social media.
We Celebrated the Blooms! Natchez has more than 10,000 Crepe Myrtle Trees and counting! They're breathtaking! We had a lot of enthusiastic help! Our wonderful committee included many of the Adams Country Master Gardeners and we were fortunate to gain sponsor support.
Note in the above photo from last summer, we are with the Visit Natchez Team: Stratton Hall and Jen Combs starting from the left from our first meeting! We are already looking forward to next year!
Enjoy these stories. You'll also find more details on my blog and on social media.
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THE ADVOCATE Natchez Celebrates the Crepe Myrtle in June 21-22 Festival Advocate Staff Report June 15, 2019 COUNTRY ROADS Crepe Craze: At last the International Crepe Myrtle Festival Comes to Natchez James Fox-Smith June 2019 The Dispatch Worth the Drive! Staff Reports June 8, 2019 GARDEN & GUN TALK OF THE SOUTH: Crazy for Crepe Myrtle - Natchez Celebrates June 18, 2019 NATCHEZ DEMOCRAT Inaugural festival to celebrate area's thousands of crepe myrtles Ben Hillyer Sunday, June 9, 2019 NATCHEZ DEMOCRAT We are blessed with crepe myrtles Jan Griffey Saturday, June 8, 2019 MISSISSIPPI TODAY A blooming spectacle: New crepe myrtle festival invites the world to visit Natchez Sherry Lucas June 20, 2019 |
The Advocate
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Marble statue in my courtyard with vines during the French Quarter Home and Courtyard Tour (Photographed by Advocate Staff Sophia Germer)
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The Advocate
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BELMONT PLANTATION
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If your dream has always been to own a plantation home – and maybe run a bed and breakfast there, this is your golden opportunity.
“This is the last antebellum plantation in the Mississippi Delta,” said Peter Patout, the listing agent with Talbot Historic Properties. The history of Belmont begins with the Worthington brothers - William, Elisha, Isaac and William – who were natives of Kentucky. In the early 19th century they all purchased vast amounts of land along the Mississippi Delta and each established his own plantation and home. Read more here. |
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BEHIND THE SHUTTERS, CREOLE hideaway
embraces NATURE AND the past
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For a man of the world, Peter Patout has adopted a modest lifestyle. He rents out half his 1887 Italian-style double shotgun on Bourbon Street and has tenants living in the two-story “back house” that dates to 1824.
That leaves just four rooms on one side of the double for Patout: a home office, bedroom, living/dining room and kitchen. Yet every space is replete with antiques, art, leather-bound books and busts of Greek or Roman deities. Tomorrow, guests at Friends of the Cabildo tour will have an opportunity to see Patout’s digs — including the atmospheric courtyard between the front and back houses — when the nonprofit stages its annual home and courtyard tour from 2 to 6 p.m. Tickets are $25 and available at the 1850 House Museum Store (523 St. Ann St., (504) 524-9118) on the day of the tour. (friendsofthecabildo.org). Read the full article here. |
the test of time
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What defines art and architecture as treasures?
While the application for New Iberia’s National Registry historic district is still being processed in Washington DC, visitors are coming into the Queen City thanks to The Institute of Classical Architecture & Art - Louisiana Chapter and Teche Area native son, Peter Patout. Together they will be hosting a four-day Fall Foray along Bayou Teche to learn about the architecture and art of Iberia Parish — along with delicious dinners, private tours and educational opportunities. Read the full article. |
Hidden French Quarter cottages, Uptown mansions, downtown Covington condos and more open for spring house tours
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Behind an iron gate, down a narrow side alley and tucked in the back of a shady brick courtyard is a diminutive "masionette" covered in muscadine vines and surrounded by ancient elephant ear. Steps from the noise and neon of Bourbon Street, the charming gabled two-story, just one room deep, two rooms wide, seems plucked from the old world and deposited without alteration into the new.
The masionette (or tiny house), built in the 1820s, sits behind a double shotgun cottage constructed in 1887. With the courtyard between them, the two sister buildings form one property that illustrates how tastes and architectural styles changed from Creole to Victorian. The older house is simpler in design, with board and batten shutters on its front French doors overlooking the courtyard. The late 19th-century shotgun house has transoms over the windows and doors, decorative brackets and louvered shutters. Read more in the full article. |
A Modern Guide to
the Best of New Orleans
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If you are lucky enough to get invited to either Julia Reed’s for one of her legendary book parties featuring homemade supper or cocktails in the garden at John D and Melissay Gray’s shangri la, GO! And then there is Peter Patout’s very special French Quarter abode situated around a lush courtyard. But there are so many magical spots - private and public - to see. Walk past Allison Kendrick’s magnificent Garden district house on 1st street (and all the other houses in the garden district) or visit the Hermann Grima and Gallier houses for a peek into the past. Just walking around the lower French Quarter and Esplanade Street and biking through the Marigny and Bywater neighborhoods puts you into a good mood. Finally, New Orleans cemeteries - specifically St Louis Cemetery number 1 and Lafayette Cemetery number 2- beautiful, haunting and historic.
Read full article here. |
4 plantation-era mansions for sale offer pieces of Southern history
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Described in the property listing as “the only surviving antebellum mansion encircled by columns in the state of Mississippi,” Dunleith was built in 1856 by Charles Dahlgren and his wife, Mary. The property is a National Historic Landmark. One of its more famous occupants was John Roy Lynch, a former slave who became one of the first African-Americans to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Listed on the National Historic Register, Mary Plantation House's exact age is not known. It is located in Plaquemines Parish, La. The property’s first owner was Louis Martin Bragner De Clouet, who acquired the land in 1774 and likely built a small house there, according to MaryPlantation.com. The house was enlarged in the 1820s, making it the oldest building in Plaquemines Parish. “The original one-room-deep, West Indian style Creole house was remodeled to a straight line, pavilion-roofed structure, two deep with surrounding 10 foot galleries on all four sides,” according to MaryPlantation.com. Full article here. |
$2,950,000 Homes in Miami,
California and Louisiana
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INDOORS: The two-story house was built in 1846 and expanded in the late 19th century. Its original architect was Henry Howard, who built several similarly grand houses in and around New Orleans.
The current owners purchased the house about 15 years ago, at which point they say it was in a state of decline: no plumbing, no electricity, broken windows, creeping wisteria. It has since been meticulously restored, with original features retained where possible, including cypress, pine and oak floors, plaster molding and cornices throughout. Most of the fireplace mantels — some black marble, others wooden with hand-carved scallop design — are original. Full article here. |
the house that sugarcane built
the louisiana burguieres
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Allied family and distant cousins were also helpful. Both the Patout family and the Burguieres are descendants of Isidore Patout. I thank William Patout, president of M.A. Patout and Son sugarcane producers, for sharing his written memories; Peter Patout, New Orleans antiques dealer, who allowed the use of a valuable photograph from his collection; and Adrienne Patout, who provided information about Patout/Burguieres relations.
Access ebook, here. |
A DAY IN THE LIFE: DESIGNER THOMAS JAYNE
WHAT'S BETTER THAN A BOWL OF LOBSTER JAMBALAYA?
a DAY IN THE BIG EASY WITH DESIGNER THOMAS JAYNE.
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9:15a.m. Jayne dashes into Peter Patout’s small shop just a few blocks away in the Quarter, and he looks like a kid in a candy store. He spies an 18th-century porcelain cooler, which once made a treat that was a predecessor to ice cream, and clutches it tight: “I wish I owned this!” Patout, a Louisiana native renowned for his expertise on Southern antiques, has become something of an ambassador for the city. “He’s a tastemaker,” says Jayne, who bought a 19th-century Louisiana bookcase for his apartment from Patout. Vogue writer Julia Reed became a Patout disciple after staying in the 1820s guest cottage tucked behind the dealer’s back courtyard. “People stay with him and they get the bug,” says Jayne, who met the same fate. “He’s a great storyteller.”
Read more in the full article. |
ham biscuits, hostess gowns, and other southern SPECIALTIES
an entertaining life (with recipes)
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Another gift I always adore comes from my antiques-dealer friend Peter Patout. His Aunt Evelyn's candied kumquats are fabulous on cake or ice cream, with pork or duck or sweet potatoes, and I once slivered them and used them to decorate the top of a glamorous holiday charlotte russe. Peter managed to finagle Evelyn's recipe, which calls for three days of boiling and stirring-but only for a few minutes each morning. He says he actually enjoys the ritual of fooling with them while he makes his cafe au lait.
Access ebook here. See More of Julia Reed's work at Garden & Gun Magazine: |
in new orleans, a creole survivor
at what one resident called "the respectable end of bourbon street," an antiques dealer's Victorian double-shotgun house epitomizes the city's unique architectural character.
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In 1718, French Canadian naval officer Jean Baptise Bienville situated New Orleans on a crescent of the Mississippi River, where silt deposits over the centuries had created a natural elevation. Antiques dealer Peter Patout is in a position to appreciate Bienville's decision. Patout's double-shotgun style home, built in 1887 in New Orleans' venerable Le Vieux Carre, or French Quarter, survived Hurricane Katrina's devastation with the mere loss of a few roof tiles. Vernacular houses like Patout's are a defining feature of New Orleans' streetscapes. In the French Quarter, a National Historic Landmark district, their floor-to-ceiling louvered door and window shutters - called jalousies - open directly to the street, blurring the boundary between interior and exterior.
Read full magazine article here. |
Queen of the Turtle Derby
AND OTHER SOUTHERN PHENOMENA
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Last week I was in New Orleans, where I also live, and I hadn't been there for an hour before my friend Peter Patout call me up and asked me to come over and eat. He had bought some shrimp by the side of the road and boiled them with corn and onions and potatoes. We covered the table with newspapers, fixed a drink, and ate. The next day he called again and asked if I wanted to eat the rest of those shrimp in some Creole sauce for lunch, and I did. While we were eating lunch, Peter's cook, Grace, was cooking chicken stew to leave for supper (it is seriously one of the best things I have ever eaten( and enjoying her own lunch of friend skins off the chicken. She gave me a bite and I remembered why I eat fried chicken. If I hadn't had to leave town, I would've gone back again for the stew.
Access ebook here. |
VESTIGES OF GRANDUER
the PLANTATIONS OF LOUISIANA'S RIVER ROAD
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I would like to acknowledge all those individuals who helped make this book possible. Alex S. MacLean made the vita contribution of aerial photography. Alex is, in my opinion, the preeminent chronicler of the environment from the air, and I am honored that he was willing to make such a substantial contribution to this project. Eugene Cizek contributed the historical essay that introduces the body of the book. Cizek is one of the most noted authorities on the historic architecture of the River Road and one of the most prominent advocates for its preservation. Peter Patout, a friend and antiquarian, was my first and most enthusiastic guide to the River Road. Much of what I ultimately discovered and learned about the River Road resulted from Peter's early help and Feedback.
Access ebook here. |
