Winners

New Orleans, April 9, 2022:  Louisiana Landmarks Society is pleased to announce the winners of the 2022 Louisiana Landmarks Society Awards for Excellence in Historic Preservation. These awards honor projects completed in Orleans Parish in 2020 and 2021 representing outstanding examples of restoration or rehabilitation of historic buildings, or new construction.

Louisiana Landmarks Society will honor a total of fourteen projects. “The pandemic put our awards on hold last year,” said Sandra Stokes, former President of Louisiana Landmarks Society and Chair of the Awards Committee.  “As we resume our program with renewed excitement, we are delighted to award these excellent projects and the teams that have brought them to fruition.”

The 2022 Louisiana Landmarks Society Awards for Excellence in Historic Preservation will be presented and celebrated at a program and reception at Hotel Saint Vincent on May 10, 2022. 

The 2022 Louisiana Landmarks Society Awards for Excellence in Historic Preservation winners are:

1012 Canal Street is a well-executed example of an early twentieth century Beaux-Arts style building. Unfortunately, it has undergone neglect and extensive fire damage in recent decades. As with most of the street’s architecturally significant structures, its upper floors remained unused. While only minor changes had occurred on the upper-level facade, storefront glass with modern metal screening dramatically altered its ground floor. This project, which involved renovation, refurbishment, and new construction, revitalized the building by creating a retail space on the ground floor and nine short-term rental units on the upper floors.

This early twentieth-century mid-block five-story mixed-use row building with a prominent Italianate style façade suffered a devastating fire in January of 2016. Before the fire, retailers occupied the first floor, while the upper floors were used for storage. Overseen by Charles Ward of Rozas-Ward Architects, a delicate design-build campaign ensued to revive the site, led by contractor Wesley J. Palmisano, principal of Palmisano, LLC (now Impetus). Located in the Downtown Development District, the damaged façade was restored. The rebuilt interior once again houses commercial space on the street level. The upper floors have been transformed into forty-seven short-term residential units as well as two rooftop penthouses.

This hip-roofed, bricked-between-post Creole cottage in Faubourg Marigny may date to the 1820s. It has experienced many lives, the most recent of which as a church with a steeple added to the roof. The current owner chose to rehabilitate the cottage for new commercial and residential occupants and to help revitalize the neighborhood. The renovation included extensive repair to the exterior and new interior millwork, sills, and door and window casings. We congratulate owner Ronal Hawkins, and lead project manager Dan Akerley of Albert Architecture for revitalizing the corner and helping to energize the North Rampart neighborhood.

Water damaged and languishing, the Farnsworth Apartments, built in 1932, were brought to new life under the guidance of Albert Architecture. Located at the prime corner of St. Charles Avenue and Jefferson Avenue, the Streamline Moderne late Deco residential enclave was rehabilitated into nine apartments that retain the building’s historic components while introducing upgrades, particularly to kitchens and bathrooms suitable to contemporary living. Apparent from the street and a chief feature within, new metal windows were designed to both replicate the original steel windows and meet current hurricane resistance requirements.

Once part of c. 1850 “Union Row,” a block-long row of buildings on Carondelet Street, 353 Carondelet in 1958 joined together two of the four-story commercial buildings into a single unit by removal of the party wall and with installation of a single Mid-Century Modern slipcover façade. Now housing the headquarters of Fidelity Bank, the period first floor interior spaces were preserved, the second floor was finished as an executive space for seven offices, break out workspaces, a board room and break room. The third and fourth floors are white box ready for future tenants.

The International Trade Mart building was designed by Edward Durell Stone in 1964 to serve as the hub of international trade for the Port of New Orleans. The remarkable restoration of the iconic building included introducing new materials and techniques to create the luxury hotel and residences, ballrooms, and public attractions that include a rooftop exhibit in the former revolving lounge that celebrates Louisiana’s cultural heritage, a panoramic observation deck, extensive landscaped paths and gardens, and dining venues. The World Trade Center was named to Louisiana Landmarks Society’s 2013 List of Nine Most Endangered Sites, making this impressive transformation even more poignant.

Begun in 1861 as one of several charitable institutions built by Irish philanthropist Margaret Haughery, Saint Vincent’s housed orphans for over a century. After closing in the 1970s, the building complex met increasingly challenging times. Following a multi-year rehabilitation led by Kupperman Companies, contractor Impetus/Palmisano and Metro Studio Architects, Hotel Saint Vincent opened in June 2021 as a 75-room hotel. Its rich red brickwork and handsome cast-iron verandahs once again grace the streetscape. Amenities include dining areas on the lateral galleries and a modern interior design that complements the property’s historic character.

Howard Avenue is enjoying new economic life within the early twentieth-century buildings that replaced the nineteenth-century residences that once lined the street, renamed for the Howard family in 1889 after construction of the nearby Howard Memorial Library. The c. 1916 building at 818 Howard Avenue now houses on its ground floor the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience, a cultural and educational facility that serves to expand the nearby Museum District. Apartments are on the second through fourth floors, with a community space and terrace on the fifth floor.

One11 Hotel was originally built by the Louisiana Sugar Refining Company in 1884 to process, store and ship sugar. Its endurance as one of the last remaining “New Orleans Sugar District” refinery structures is further assured by the conversion of the structure to an 83-room boutique hotel, touting an unobstructed view from the eighth-floor roof deck of the French Quarter and crescent bend of the Mississippi River. Refined modern finishes juxtapose with the original exposed brickwork, massive iron columns and wooden beams to provide continuity with its industrial past.

With this award, the Louisiana Landmarks Society honors the memory of the late architect and dedicated preservationist Michael Rouchell, project manager for Williams Architects, in the challenging task of repairing and restoring the important Pedesclaux-Lemonnier House at Royal and St. Peter Streets. The three-year undertaking has restored the building’s extensive street and courtyard exteriors, strengthened lintels and balconies, repaired shutters and ironwork and begun the renovation of the interior. We congratulate owner James and Richard Realty Holdings for addressing this longstanding need.

A fixture along Franklin Avenue for one hundred years, the former Capdau School served for decades as the elementary education resource for the public school children of the Old Gentilly streetcar suburb founded in 1909 by the Edgewood Park Improvement Association. Named for former school board president Pierre A. Capdau (1864-1919), the three-story, restrained Beaux-Arts style masonry structure remained mostly unaltered during its many decades as a public school. Now combined with complementary onsite new construction, Capdau again serves the public as a “home for the aged,” with eighty affordable apartments for the elderly.

Opened in 1906, the original Norwegian Seamen’s Church began as part of the 1864 Norwegian mission to spread the Gospel to Nordic seamen in foreign ports, and to provide a venue for Norwegian sailors to gather for worship and socializing. Expanding, the Mid-Century Modern complex was built in 1968. When funding ceased in 1916, locals purchased and rebranded it as the Scandinavian Jazz Church and Cultural Center. This thoughtful renovation preserves the Scandinavian feel as it transforms the complex, pool and grounds into the Spyre, a reverent and mindful wellness center for the body and soul.

 St. Roch chapel, erected in 1876, is a small, hexagonal holy space that rises some 30 feet in the midst of St. Roch Cemetery No. 1. Over the years, storms and neglect had caused fundamental damage. In 2017 a four-year interior restoration began on the 324-square foot nave and vaulted ceiling. Moisture laden walls were taken down to exposed brick, repointed, re-plastered and painted with breathable lime-based products. A new seamed copper roof and steel attic beams were added. The eleven termite-infested arched window frames were replaced. Water damaged woodwork around the altar was repaired or replaced. The chapel’s ribbed ceiling was repainted in a vivid hue of midnight blue with gold accents, making the chapel once again the distinctive and peaceful space it was built to be.

The three adjoining historic properties at Canal Street and Exchange Place have now unified their architectural features and brought enhanced functionality and new economic life to this corner with two ground floor commercial spaces, twenty spacious hotel units on the upper floors and a small penthouse. Named for the country’s first storefront movie theater which opened in 1896 at the Neo-Classical style stucco building at 623 Canal Street, The Vitascope joins that building on the interior with the Italianate style building at 629 Canal Street and with the Landmark Venetian Renaissance styled cast iron façade building at 111 Exchange Place.

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