ist Rick Raster—Arceneaux has played with Americana in her own way, infusing the couple’s modern tastes into the historic interiors. The floorplan echoes that of a grand Louisiana mansion with the library, kitchen, dining room, keeping room, and great room on the first level. Its fourteen-foot ceilings, the freshly painted walls, selected furniture, fixtures, and drapes all allude to humble beginnings, but also make the home feel modern. Furnished with both 19th-century and 20th-century pieces, the interior is simple, in scale, and evolved. The mid-20th-century furniture that Arceneaux has selected fits this mansion as neatly as would Windsor chairs and Shaker chests. Everything in the mansion is livable, with a vernacular charm. “Something new, something old,” she confesses.
“There’s not one particular space that’s better than another. They all go together, they all flow together.
The formal dining room, once referred to as the Oriental Room because of the collectable artistic pieces and the décor displayed, is formal and elegant. There, Arceneaux commissioned local artist Johnny Rivers Bicknell to paint a floorto-ceiling trompe l’oeil. French for “fool the eye,” Bicknell’s mural creates the illusion of reality. Through skillful use of color, shading, and perspective, painted objects appear three-dimensional.
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On the second story, the master bedroom and a private study adjoin a second story balcony overlooking Jordan Street. “Tom serves me breakfast on the porch every morning,” adds Arceneaux. “Soft boiled eggs and toast soldiers. It’s my favorite breakfast.” The guest rooms are situated down a hallway, opposite the master bedroom, and the third floor has an entertainment room, equipped with a 75” flat screen television—a nod to a more modern way of life.
A stately historicism extends throughout the interior, and is formal, with what Arceneaux calls “a patina of old.” Fresh painted walls, with exposed beams lend “a soft but very sophisticated feeling,” and the flooring, depending on the past and present owner, is a combination of old pine, oak and maple—richly colored and evocatively knotted. Transom windows, prominent door casings, and bold, multifaceted crown moldings emphasize the Colonial Revival style throughout the home. Outside, the mansion had long been painted white, which seemed perfect. In the early 1980s, Dr. Simonton added a carriage house and pool. “The pool is in the shape of a femur
