There is a distinct rhythm to the city which locals dance to and repeat visitors recognize it. First there is the gas lit charm of a Creole Christmas which gives way to the excess and neon celebrations of New Years Eve. After a day of recuperation football Bowl season has arrived with the Sugar Bowl and this year the BSC and it is marked with hundreds of visitors sporting their team colors up and down St. Charles Avenue and all over the French Quarter. This year as Saints fans our hopes were extended an extra week or two until we got knocked out of the play offs. Then and only then do we seriously begin to clean our houses, take down all remnants of Christmas and get ready for Mardi Gras. Most of us decorate slowly over a two or three week span, you want to be ready by the first weekend of parades (they start next week) but you don’t want the bunting and the masks up too soon. There is a subtle quickening of the steps, thoughts turn to this years’ costumes and often of checking the supply for the glue gun. Party invitations start to come in, you hear about different krewes and their throws and friends begin to ask of they can park at our inn (we are a block from St. Charles where all the parades but one pass by). There is sudden interest in ball gowns we welcome the guests who have been with us the last five Mardi Gras and you swear you will pace yourself this year! Tomorrow night the first parade rolls through the Quarter (there is even a unique parlance, parades do not march during Mardi Gras they roll) and while I am not making any promises but we hope to update our readers often about all the excitement and visual delights of 2012 Mardi Gras. Happy Carnival all.
2012 Carnival Season Has Offically Started
February 4th, 2012 by Nancy Fournier
Music Offering in New Orleans
January 10th, 2012 by Nancy Fournier
There is so much music in this city on any given day it is difficult to choose. It is a rainy Tuesday night the day after the BCS college football championship and the morning streets were jammed with visitors making their way back home. As the tide recedes New Orleans is left to herself with a myriad of choices to delight the ears on a quiet Tuesday evening. Margie Perez is playing at the St. Alphonsus Church as part of their series to bring more people into the beautiful local church. Which was originally built in 1855 by the Redemptorist Fathers to serve the religious and social needs of the Irish Catholic immigrants who began settling an area upriver from the French Quarter known as Lafayette City in the 1840s. It was one of a number of buildings forming a religious complex that once occupied five adjacent city blocks. Often referred to as “Ecclesiastical Square”, the complex included an orphanage, nine school buildings, a gymnasium, three churches, the priests’ residence and gardens, two convents, stables, a laundry and other supporting buildings. It was where Anne Rice attended when she was growing up in New Orleans. St. Alphonsus is well-known for its art and architecture. The frescoes and stained glass windows of St. Alphonsus are some of the most beautiful in the nation.
If you want something different, Opera on Tap is back again at the inn on Bourbon Street. Opera on Tap brings classic opera to the masses by performing classical works at local bars and watering holes. Bon Operati is playing this evening. If you want classical Dixie land you can board the Steamboat Natchez for the Dukes of Dixie Land. If you just need to shake your booty there are four places with brass Bands playing tonight. Finally if you want to get all the rabble of the football crowds out of your head, Joe Crown is playing jazz piano at Ralph’s on the Park. All of this on a quiet day in Crescent City.
Christmas Holiday Home Tour
November 28th, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
We are so excited the Sully Mansion is being featured on its first ever home tour!For the first time French Quarter Festivals Inc is sponsoring the Twelve Inns of Christmas Tour and the Sully Mansion is participating. It is going to be held the first two weekends of the month and features thirteen Bed and Breakfasts throughout the city all decked out in our holiday best! It is a fabulous way to get visitors inside the many diverse and beautiful homes which serve as B&Bs throughout the city. In the past we have decorated in all the wonderful decorations our family grew up with. This year we are trying a themed and hopefully classy approach all in golds and rusts with a Victorian theme. As soon as my buddies come over and we get everything up we will have photos to share. The tour this weekend is one of over 100 events over the next month celebrating all that New Orleans has to offer during the holidays, from concerts in the Cathedral to Revillion dinners to bonfires along the River. It is a fabulous time to visit, come join us!
New Orleans Brides
November 3rd, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
Fall is a wonderful time to get married in New Orleans. The skies are bright blue, the temperature is perfect and the air is humming with sounds of music and laughter. We are deep in the bridal season here
at the Sully Mansion with one a few weeks ago and another planned for next week. We love to see the excitement of the bridesmaids as they get ready at the inn and the variety of dresses is always fun. In our neighborhood you can tell when it is wedding time as the Opera Guild which is a block away is a popular spot for wedding receptions as is the garden of Commander’s palace and the Elms is a three blocks away. On the 22nd of October we counted six weddings occurring all within a five block radius. And why not? The smell of sweet olive is in the air and the humidity is down so everyone’s hair looks perfect. Such a beautiful sight with all the flower bouquets and polished dance floors. We love out rituals and a good party so getting married in New Orleans just makes sense. Look how beautiful our lovely bride and her bridesmaids were, we wish them all the best.
A New Orleans Weekend
October 14th, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
Let’s see what to do this weekend? There is the Blues and Bar-B–Que Festival for the next three days with two stages, everything from steel national guitar Delta Blues music to the wailing of Tad Beniot. Did I mention that there are four different Bar-B-Que vendors, not to mention a multitude of other New Orleans edible treats, arts and beer and the weather is supposed to be sunny skies in the 70’s, or that the festival is free? Too much music for you? After all you went and saw Trombone Shorty for free who blew the roof off the park Wednesday night, so maybe something else. Hmm, how about the Latino Carnivale at the Zoo this weekend with dances and more music and food. Not in the mood? Well there is the Madisonville Wooden Boat Festival along the banks of the Tchefuncte River. This fabulous family-friendly event has old wooden boats on display and demonstrations of boat building techniques a quick and dirty boat building contest, races, food and music as well. Don’t want to drive across the Lake? O.K. how about hopping the ferry to Gretna and attending the St. Cletus Oyster Festival where you can gorge on oysters cooked every way possible (and possibly see the 2011 Oyster Queen). You could just go a little further down the road from Gretna to Bridge City and attend the Gumbo Festival and eat yourself a big bowl of gumbo and dance to the Cajun Fais do-do they have planned. Too hot for gumbo and would prefer cold beer in a nice frosted mug? I count three OcktoberFests going on around town. If that all seems too crowded and festive, what about the first annual Daiquiri Festival this weekend where you pay one price and a little shuttle takes you around to six different frozen daiquiri stores ending up at the Hi-Ho Lounge for a dance party. Too hedonistic? How about the New Orleans Film Festival which opened on Wednesday and has films playing in six different venues throughout the city accompanied by panels and discussion groups? Don’t want to go out? You could always stay home and garden and wait to watch the Saints on TV on Sunday and if none of that appeals to you- maybe you should go to a less cultural place, like Manhattan or San Francisco.
New Orleans’ Renaissance
October 6th, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
As a part time blogger I am always interested in what others writing about New Orleans have to say. Tim McNally has a wonderful one, MyNewOrleans.com. He wrote today about the exciting resurgence New Orleans is experiencing, all the more miraculous given the destruction of Hurricane Katrina six years ago. He captures the hope and the challenges in this uniquest of American cities and this particular point in time. I have excerpted a bit of it below for those of you thinking of coming to visit our city to give you a sense of the tremendous civic excitement we are experiencing and encourage you to jump in there with us.
“What this community is now experiencing is nothing short of miraculous. Given our situation before Katrina, and certainly our situation for several years following Katrina, we are now on such a roll that it is absolutely scary. It’s also astounding and gratifying. Brand new in this old town is a can-do attitude built on top of America’s most unique culture.
Just about every day we are hearing about people who have come here to find something singular, and they find it, just as they had hoped. Then they vow never to leave because they want to experience it for the rest of their lives. What we formerly took for granted was almost lost. We grabbed it and continued to make it even more real, to make it better, and others came to strengthen our grip on our culture.
Finally we are finding the best of who we are, and we like what we see. Of course, there are issues. Too many of our young people are dying on our streets. Too many of our neighbors are unemployed or under-employed. Too many of us have seen too much, and lived through some bad times. Maybe we don’t recognize beauty and opportunity when it appears.
New Orleans is at that moment.. Those who are younger see all the opportunity, see all the beauty, see all the new landscape. Most importantly, people are coming to us and staying. They like what we treasure here. Our music moves them. Our celebrations give them joy. Our cuisine excites them. And they embrace our culture, happy to participate and protect it and happy to revel as one of us in our style.
Here’s a bit of advice to those of you who are not quite on-board with the new New Orleans: keep those views to yourself. Work now to make this place the home you always wanted. We have never seen so much opportunity, and so many helping hands, young and old, ready to preserve New Orleans and make her grander, more delightful to the senses and more satisfying to the soul.
No other community in America has this going on as much as we do. This precious moment can certainly pass, and shame on us if we allow that to happen without achieving something significant and lasting”
Sort of makes you stand up straight and be proud doesn’t it?
New Orleans Fall Offerings
October 3rd, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
The humidity has disappeared, there are no little swirly clouds in the tropical and the sky is Crayola blue. It is fall in New Orleans one of my favorite times of year! Fall is the best kept visitors secret in the city as there are many music festivals, all the restaurants are open, the shrimp season is in full swing and there are lots less tourist than in the spring. Hmm what to do in October? Art for Arts Sake was last weekend where all the art galleries open at night and there are bands and cocktails on the street. Think of it as a six mile long street party up magazine street (a little commerce gets going here in Uptown as many of the fabulous stores are open as well) and from block to block you may hear rhythm and blues band with a lone saxophone wailing a few blocks away and a few storefronts from there is a traditional jazz combo. All the galleries and most of the stores offer wine and yummy little treats to eat. This coming weekend is the Swing Dance Festival put on by nolajitterbugs. Get out your spats, find your twirliest skirt and come on down!
New Orleans Food Trucks
September 23rd, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
So often a really wonderful local festival in New Orleans goes viral and the next thing you know the lines for beer wrap around the corner and you cannot get a good space on the dance floor for all these guys from Cleveland who heard about the festival from their cousin from Palm Springs and before you know it the little local festival with killer NOLA food and great music has a high entry price and the local have ceded the event to visitors. Well, time to get in on the ground floor of what I have no doubt will be an annual tradition! Tomorrow is the first annual Street Fare Derby. Promising to celebrate the culture of street food and food trucks, the Derby will be held at the Fair Grounds (the site of that other little local festival the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival) and will have over fifteen food trucks, libations, excellent music to the tune of Big Sam’s Funky Nation as well as Kermit Ruffins. If that is not enough the Derby is being held in on the Closing Day of the track’s Summer Quarter Horse Meet so you can also watch the ponies and place a small wager if you are so inclined. So if we time it right we can start off with a gourmet grilled cheese (perhaps Havarti and Bacon) watch a race, move on to a hybrid Po Boy-Sandwich-Vietnamese Banh Mi,dance it off and then snack on an Asian Noodle Bowl and a Ginger snowball to wash things down and watch them come down the stretch. What a day! What a town!
New Orleans Brides
August 31st, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
It must have been Hurricane Irene or all the close calls up and down the East Coast but for the last two days we must have had over a dozen phone calls from women wanting to get married in New Orleans and were calling to see if the Sully Mansion would be a suitable venue for them. We host six or so weddings every year and each one is a unique delight. We have done large formal weddings for 150 complete with a perfectly lovely young women morphing into bridezilla the day of the big event to a fabulous party for forty festing a gay couple that tied the know on our front porch. People love our gardens and when we tent the side year it turns into one of those priceless New Orleans environs full of lush tropical greenery and architectural splendor. We have had the mule drawn carriages pull up to escort the bridal party to the church and the brass band fill the air with infectious music that all the high heels get kicked off and the party gets started. We have had had harpists on the stairs for the grand entrance and the adorable flower girl dawdle down the garden path. Big cakes, small cakes groom cakes and cupcakes we have served them all as part of the big day. It takes a fair bit of planning, everyone’s vision of the perfect wedding is different, in the last two days I have heard everything from wanting a wooden dance floor to assurances that the guests will have access to a tv to stay current on the college football team (I’m hoping they change their mind on that one) and despite all the difference, the emotion between the couple getting married and the smiles they reserve for each other remains the same and it delights us to no end to be a part of those moments. Bring on the brides!
Plantations’ Majesty a Short Distance from New Orleans
August 19th, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
Every once in a while we get a day off and in an even rarer circumstance we get out of town. Don’t misunderstand there are plenty of afternoons we take some time to enjoy all the wonderful things New Orleans has to offer but we rarely get to get in the car and go. This Wednesday as part of the August lull we decided to head up the river road to check out the plantations we have never had a chance to visit. Whole most of our guests stop at Oak Alley Plantation and Laura Plantation (both fascinating for very different reasons, Oak Alley is right out of Gone with the Wind while Laura is more Caribbean in feel and color and the docents are descendents of the owners who were Creole so it more complex from a sociological perspective) and decided to visit San Francisco, St. Josephs and Evergreen Plantations. All of them are less than 70 minutes from the inn along the road. San Francisco has costumed guides who are knowledgeable and we learned all about the owner who thought he was just making a quick stop to introduce his young German bride to his father to find his father on his deathbed and suddenly the owner of a 300 acre plantation. The indoor renovation is spectacular and gives you a real feel of what life was like them. The school house and slave quarters are intact as is an old inventory list of the slaves. We then took a $1.00 ferry across the Mississippi to the other side and visited the other two plantations. The grove pictured above is from Evergreen which is still a working sugar cane farm and the grove goes out to the field not the house. With all of the homes so close you could get a sens of what life was like back in the mid 1800′s. We even had fried boudin balls and gumbo for lunch sitting in a roadside eatery which we were sharing with the director Quentin Tarentino and his production crew apparently scouting locations. The old South and New Hollywood all in an hours drive away.
Christmas Holiday Home Tour
