In The Spirit Of New Orleans

It's no secret that I love New Orleans. And it's no secret that Debra Shriver loves New Orleans too.

I was listening to an interview with her on the radio the other day (on NPR). I was just flipping the dial when the warmth of her voice captured me. She was taking about the small moments she cherishes when she's in New Orleans. She talked about being on "siesta time" when she's here. Her impressions were contagious and captivating.

from In The Spirit Of  New Orleans

Debra Shriver wrote a book about her personal story about purchasing and restoring a home in the French Quarter in the gorgeous book "Stealing Magnolias - Tales from a New Orleans Courtyard". So when she told me she was doing a second book about New Orleans, I was intrigued.

What more could she say? PLENTY! The new book is published by Assouline, who has a series of "In The Spirit Of..." books, and it is great that they decided to include New Orleans, and even better that they tapped Debra Shriver to write it. So here we now have "In The Spirit of New Orleans."

Get this book!

The blurb from Assouline says that "Debra Shriver is a twelfth-generation Southerner, admitted Francophile, and devotee of jazz music. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, she and her journalist husband bought and lovingly restored an 1850s Greek Revival home in the city’s historic Vieux Carré neighborhood, and chronicled her incredible story in Stealing Magnolias: Tales From a New Orleans Courtyard, published in 2010. She is a media executive with the company founded by William Randolph Hearst and sits on the boards of the New Orleans Museum of Art, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, and the Apollo Theater Foundation in Harlem. Shriver is a self-professed “New-New,” dividing her time between New York and New Orleans."

Moon over Bourbon Street from In The Spirit Of New Orleans

Debra and her husband Jerry are are dual citizens of New Orleans and New York. They just don't blow into town and party at a second home, but rather have become involved in the rebirth of post Katrina New Orleans. They put their money and their time where their hearts are.

There is a great overview of Jazz in the book In The Spirit Of New Orleans from it's roots to Louis Armstrong...

...to it's current crop of fabulous younger musicians (Troy Andrews above)

"In The Spirit Of New Orleans" has all the cultural touchstones: Jazz, history, religion, food and drink, architecture, customs, people, and Mardi Gras. But yet this is vastly far from a  retread of a typical guide book. Through Debra's depth of feeling and understanding of her adopted city, its familiar themes become fresh, current, and relevant. Her writing is that of a wise and gifted storyteller. Even for those of us who know the stories of New Orleans, we are still drawn into how Debra tells (writes) them. She is a beautiful wordsmith.

New Orleans is relevant

And of course its history adds to its relevance

The selection of photographs is glorious, and the information given in the book is super solid.  There are several fascinating glossaries, one devoted to Jazz terms, one devoted to Voodoo words, and one devoted to Mardi Gras words, and there is a list of festivals and dates. The Secret Gardens & Fine Addresses guide is perfect and extremely useful.

The old Butcher's Market in the old French Market, which still exists today

As a local I love seeing books that tell the story of New Orleans with depth and understanding. I am proud to own In The Spirit Of New Orleans, and derive great pleasure from reading it. I will also be proud to give it as a gift to those who have never been to New Orleans, or to those who have visited - It is a perfect memento of their time here.

Debra devotes a couple of pages to quotes from notables and what they have to say about New Orleans. I think Chris Rose says it best, "We dance even if there's no radio. We drink at funerals. We talk too much and laugh too loud and live too large, and, frankly we're suspicious of others who don't".

Put this book on your must have list, and if you got a little Christmas cash, pick it up today. Debra is  on a book signing tour with In The Spirit Of New Orleans, so if you happen upon her, tell her The Vamp sends you.

One of my favorite paintings by Jacques Aman done in 1840,  entitled "Creole in a Red Turban" - It's included in Debra Shriver's book and it is in the collection of the Historic New Orleans Collection via

PS I would love for Debra Shriver to do a third book on New Orleans about the Quadroon Balls (a ballroom still survives in the Bourbon Orleans Hotel), the system of placage (the word is in her unique Voodoo Glossary), about the homes that the system of placage created that still stand in the French Quarter, and about the dual families who participated, the stories about their lives.


All photos courtesy of Assouline

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A Treme Treasure

The Treme is more than an a HBO TV show about New Orleans.

The uncovered old plaster walls are left as is

The Treme is the oldest neighborhood in the USA settled by Free People of Color, and remains today an important center of African American and Creole Culture.

It's location right next to French Quarter is attractive to anyone wanting to buy a house of excellent historic pedigree and architecture. As in many cases with houses nearing the 200 year old mark, there is some serious work to be done.

The hallway may be the last remaining foyer
still retaining its original ashlar block treatment
a faux painting technique to make masonry look like stone

Will Germaine bought his Treme treasure in 2003, and found it to be a grand pile ready to fall in on itself.


He has been doing an unusual renovation. He has been trying to stabilize the house in its antiquity, bringing it back as close as possible to historical accuracy.

The old plaster walls create a livable environment without HVAC

The original owner of the house was Louise Vitry, a free woman of color, who lived a placage, in this house with one of the French Creole men who built the Treme, Achille Courcelle, and their four children. After his death, she kept the house.

The living room is charming
Slipcovers and seagrass and old plaster - Yum!

In old New Orleans, Placage was an extra legal system of "placing" a free woman of color with a white male protector in a type of common law marriage. He gave her the title to the house, and other creature comforts and luxuries, and he would be expected to provide an education (often in Paris), and an inheritance for her children.

The exterior of the house

I would love to live in house like this. I have lived in places with ruined walls and stabilized them in their glorious decrepitude. Even now I drag in chippy crappy things and use them in the house.

What about you? Could you live in a house historically restored like this?
To be fair. There is a second floor where the owner lives with comfortable amenities (like new plumbing) that are contained in an addition on the back of the house built in 1900.

The idea is to be historically accurate, not pristine. Will wants to maintain the signs of age for aesthetic reasons (kind like me in my old age ha ha). Rather than tearing down and re-doing the plaster work in the soaring rooms downstairs, he will keep much as he can secure, including the damage and the exposed lath where the plaster has fallen.

I love what Will Germaine is doing, and if I have one more house left in me to buy in New Orleans, I'd love an old crumbling center hall house in all it's decadence.