Issuu

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LIFESTYLE LETTER

Style That Lasts September 2026 Style is easy to recognize, but surprisingly difficult to define. We know it when a car rounds the corner and turns every head. We feel it when we enter a room where the colors, textures, and details belong together. Style is found in the way someone dresses, designs a home, builds a business, or sets a table. But the most memorable style is never merely decorative. It reveals something meaningful. In this month’s issue, we meet two Northshore residents whose work appears different. One commissioned a 1969 Ford Mustang. The other built an estate-planning law firm helping families prepare for difficult transitions. Yet Blaine Nolan and Christie Tournet share an understanding of style. It begins beneath the surface. Blaine’s Mustang, Bleu Bayou, is impossible to overlook. Its BASF Yachting Blue exterior, chocolate-leather interior, and 666-horsepower engine have earned national awards, television appearances, and numerous trophies. But the story is not about horsepower or paint. It is about refusing to make a copy. Rather than reproduce a Mustang, Blaine and the craftsmen at Goolsby Customs created something unmistakably his own. Every line, material and mechanical decision was considered. The result honors the car’s history without becoming trapped inside it. That may be one of the clearest definitions of style: knowing what should be preserved, what can be reimagined, and what must remain your own. We find those same questions inside Christie Tournet’s office. Christie helps families consider what they want to protect, what they hope to pass forward, and how love can be translated into practical decisions. Estate planning may not sound like a matter of style, but perhaps it is style in its most meaningful form. It is the architecture of a life. A prepared will, trust, or succession plan reflects the values of the person behind it. It asks what matters, who needs care, and what should continue after we are gone. Like the green walls of Christie’s office, the white pelican above her family photographs, and the tissue box inscribed God Bless You, the details reveal the heart of the person who chose them. True style does that. It communicates identity, intention, and care. It can roar beneath the hood of a Mustang or speak softly in an attorney’s office. So enjoy this September in style, friends. Warmly, REBECCA GEORGE & CHRISTIAN GEORGE, PUBLISHER & CO-PUBLISHER @MANDEVILLECITYLIFESTYLE

PUBLISHER

Rebecca George | rebecca.george@citylifestyle.com CO-PUBLISHER

Christian George | christian.george@citylifestyle.com P U B L I S H E R AS S I STAN T

Akifa Ashraf CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Christian George, Pam Reid C O N T R I B U T I N G P H OTO G R AP H E R S

Tommy Bennett Video, Tyler Duplechin, Abby Sands

Corporate Team CEO Steven Schowengerdt President Matthew Perry CRO Jamie Pentz CoS Janeane Thompson AD DESIGNER Matthew Endersbe LAYOUT DESIGNER Lillian Gibbs QUALITY CONTROL SPECIALIST Anna Minnick

Learn how to start your own publication at citylifestyle.com//franchise. Proverbs 3:5-6 Mandeville City Lifestyle™ is published monthly by Lifestyle Publications LLC. It is distributed via the US Postal Service to some of the Mandeville area’s most affluent neighborhoods. Articles and advertisements do not necessarily reflect Lifestyle

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From sweet daytime charm to cocktail hour glamour

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inside the issue SE PTE M B E R 2 02 6 | STYL E

12 Featured

20 30

Print Prestige Meets Digital Power.

WHY CHOOSE BETWEEN PRESTIGE AND PLACEMENT?

Departments

What Happens Next?

Christie Tournet helps families protect what matters most

Riding in Style

Lifestyle Letter

Legal Compass FINANCE + LEGAL SERVICES

Garage Tech AUTO + MARINE

Home Update HOME + DESIGN

Events

Inside the life of Blaine Nolan, the man behind Bleu Bayou

Old Wall, New Tricks Hang up the old way and try a gallery wall hanging system in your home.

On the Cover Tommy Bennett Video and Tyler Duplechin capture owner Blaine Nolan’s custom 1969 Ford Mustang Photography: Tommy Bennett Video and Tyler Duplechin

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WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Christie Tournet helps families protect what matters most ARTICLE BY CHRISTIAN GEORGE, PHD PHOTOGRAPHY BY ABBY SANDS

L EGA L C OM PASS | FI NAN CE + LE GAL SE RVICE S

American journalist Sydney J. Harris once said, “Happiness is a direction, not a place.” I turn the line over in my mind as I sit in Christie Tournet’s office, preparing to interview one of the Northshore’s more respected estate attorneys. Her reputation precedes her, but so does my preparation.

“Our team is able to help people navigate difficult moments in life. We’re able to hold your hand through this.” A week’s worth of questions fills the binder on my lap. Tabs. Notes. Arrows. I’ve marshalled enough material to cross-examine the future itself. But this is not the attorney’s office I expected. Near the window, a warm lamp illuminates a caramel-leather chair. Behind me, a white pelican opens its wings across a sweep of cream, blue, and brushed gold. Beneath it, family photographs line wovenwood cabinets. Christie’s husband and daughters smile from the frames. A nearby tissue box reads God Bless You, and above a glass shelf of flowers and artwork hangs Christie’s Pro Bono Century Award. The office is already answering questions I have not yet asked. The walls are wrapped in a soft, smoky green. “What paint color is this?” I ask. “Stony Brook,” Christie says without missing a beat. The answer comes so quickly, so decisively, that it catches me off guard. I close the binder and abandon

a week’s worth of carefully preloaded questions. Clearly, the attorney sitting across from me is far too quick, candid, and fully alive to be interviewed in bullet points.

THE QUESTIONS WE AVOID

“What do people feel when they first sit where I’m sitting?” I ask. “They don’t really want to be here,” Christie says. “They don’t want to be talking about a will, or a trust, or when they pass. People put that off for a long time.” She’s right. When I think about estate planning, I picture paperwork, uncomfortable decisions, and a future I would rather leave unopened. It is easy to postpone the conversation until life becomes less busy, the business settles down, the children grow older, or the family finally learns to survive Thanksgiving without incident. Mortality, Christie reminds me, rarely checks the calendar. CONTINUED >

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“People definitely need to get things off their chest when they’re talking about their estate,” she says. “They need to vent. They need to get it out.” That may be the first surprise of estate planning. The most important document in the room is not always the will. Sometimes it can be the family story nobody has yet said aloud. Who can be trusted? Who needs protection? Which child should make decisions? What happens to the business? Where will a dependent adult live? And what happens when love is real, but the family is complicated? Christie hears some version of these questions every day. “‘I have two kids that hate each other, but I want to name them both co-executors,’” she says, describing a dilemma that clients often bring her. “I have to guide them through that. I tell people, ‘You can blame it on me. Let them know your estate-planning attorney said you cannot do that.’” She smiles, but the warning is serious. A legal document cannot repair a fractured relationship. In the wrong hands, it may formalize the fracture and give it a checking account. That is why Christie is willing to be the unpopular voice in the room. Her job is not simply to record what a client requests, but rather to look ahead, anticipate where the plan might fail, and help a family avoid inheriting a conflict along with the house, the business, and the silver.

BUILT FROM THE GROUND UP

“How did you become an estate attorney?” I ask. The answer begins, unexpectedly, beneath a concrete slab. Christie’s father was a plumber who became a contractor and developer. While other college students were learning business from textbooks, Christie was helping run the machinery behind his ventures: payroll, accounting, employer taxes, financing, business plans, layered LLCs, construction companies, and Northshore developments. “My dad ate that up,” she says. “He put me to work.” At Loyola University, Christie studied international business and economics. She was fascinated by the human side of systems: how ordinary people and business owners respond to taxes, regulation, incentives, and pressure. For a time, she planned to earn a doctorate in economics. Then she arrived in Missouri. “I hated it,” she says. “It was so much math.” The social questions she loved had vanished beneath a small mountain of calculus, so Christie returned to Louisiana and chose another notoriously difficult route. In 2007, she passed one of the state’s first statewide notary examinations on her first attempt. Louisiana notaries do considerably more than watch someone sign a document. They may draft wills, powers of attorney, donations, affidavits, and certain business instruments. By the time Christie entered law school, she was already preparing legal documents for real people.

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“I was in law school, and I was doing powers of attorney,” she says. The documents traveled with her in a teal briefcase from Office Depot. Not exactly Louis Vuitton, but it carried the beginnings of a career. At the same time, Christie continued running her father’s companies. Her classmates were clerking for judges and studying case law. Christie was dealing with payroll, banks, human resources, financing, and the daily consequences of decisions made outside the classroom. “I’m glad I did it the way I did it,” she says. “I had so much real-world experience.” After graduating from law school in 2010, Christie joined Galloway Johnson, where she practiced construction and workers’ compensation defense. But estate planning and successions kept finding her. When a client needed a will, or a family needed help after a death, Christie was the attorney who stepped in. Then Christie left the established firm, the benefits, and the predictable ladder to open her own firm. “Was that the scariest thing you’ve ever done?” I ask. “Absolutely,” she says. “Leaving an established job where you’re working up the ranks, cashing in my little retirement account and my savings. I had just become a mom.” During the first year, Christie paid the rent, her paralegal, and every other expense before paying herself. If I can get through the first year, then I’ve got this, she remembers thinking. Then it became, If I can get through three years, I can do it. The practice grew into Christie Tournet & Associates, concentrating in estate planning, estate administration, and elder law. The teal briefcase had become a firm, and the young woman studying systems became the attorney families call when their own lives need stronger foundations.

THE QUESTIONS LOVE MUST ANSWER

The conversation grows quieter when we discuss parents caring for children with special needs. “You are everything for them right now,” Christie tells them. “But what happens if you’re not here? What does it look like with your current situation with your child? Who else knows it? Where is your child going to live? Have you talked to other people?” Love may be fierce, intuitive, and inexhaustible, but love is not an instruction manual. Someone else must know the routines, relationships, promises, medications, preferences, and a thousand practical details living inside one parent’s head before life changes. “Estate planning is one way we continue treating people we love well,” Christie says, “even when we are no longer here to answer the questions, make the decisions, or guide them forward.”

For business owners, the same question arrives. A veterinarian, chiropractor, contractor, or other professional may build a thriving company whose pulse depends almost entirely upon one person. “The doors open because you arrive,” Christie says. “The clients remain because you answer. The business works because you do. But if you have no strategy for what happens next, how can your business sustain itself?” That desire explains the teamwork around which Christie built her firm. “I really want people to understand that they’re coming in and working with a team of professionals,” she says. “We’re all equipped to work on estate plans, successions, and trust administration.” I witnessed this firsthand while waiting in the lobby before the interview. Morgan, the receptionist, answered a worried caller on the phone. I knew nothing about the situation, but I heard the precise moment her voice changed. It softened around whatever grief, fear, or confusion had entered the line. “Our team is able to help people navigate difficult moments in life,” Christie says. “We’re able to hold your hand through this.” That reassurance is supported by specialization. Christie completes continuing education, teaches attorneys, and studies with elder-law mentors because the work changes and the stakes remain. “There are not a whole lot of people doing estate planning, administration, and elder law on a daily basis,” Christie says. “I’m hungry to learn. I do not stop.”

A DIRECTION FORWARD

“What’s next for Christie Tournet?” I ask. Something ambitious, naturally. “I don’t want this business to vanish when I do,” she says. Christie is preparing to take her fifty-year-old office building nearly down to the studs. The aging electrical system and HVAC need replacing. The roofline will rise. The exterior may be reimagined. For someone raised around construction and now practicing estate law, the metaphor practically writes itself. Renovation is never merely cosmetic. It is a decision about what can be preserved, what must be replaced, and what should remain standing for the people who come next. So is estate planning. Every will asks us to imagine an absence. Every trust, succession, power of attorney, and difficult family conversation attempts to translate love into structure before time makes the decisions for us. “What does the pelican mean to you?” I ask, turning in my chair to see it more fully. “I’ve always loved our state bird,” Christie says. She leaves it there, but the image continues speaking. The white pelican is an emblem of divine protection: wings opened over what is fragile, a graceful presence between one season of life and the next. In Christian art, the pelican became a picture of Christ pouring out his sacrificial love, promising protection, nourishment, and resurrection.

BY QUIET WATERS

Before heading out for a photoshoot, I have one final, unscripted question. “When you renovate this building,” I say, “will you keep the color of the walls?” Christie glances around the room and smiles, which is answer enough. Stony Brook. Life is filled with stony passages. Families fracture. Health changes. Businesses falter. People we love disappear from rooms where we expected them always to remain. But embedded within Christie’s firm is also a brook, and brooks find their way forward. Brooks do not argue with stones; they bend around what cannot be moved, pass through narrow places, and carry us gently from one season into the next. My mind returns to the ancient Psalm, whose words seem to hold Christie and her work in a single image: CONTINUED >

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“Estate planning is one way we continue treating people we love well, even when we are no longer here to answer the questions, make the decisions, or guide them forward.” “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters” (Psalm 23). “Everything I have is a blessing from God,” Christie tells me. “I want everything I do in my daily life to make God proud, to make my family proud, to make me proud.” The inscription on the tissue box carries new meaning now: God Bless You. In another office, the words might feel decorative, but here, they feel load-bearing. Christie cannot remove grief, uncertainty, or the difficult passages every family must eventually cross. No attorney can. But she can help us prepare the way, protect the people we love, and make certain all of us enter those waters with guidance.

L EGA L C OM PASS | FI NAN CE + LE GAL SE RVICE S

Sydney J. Harris was right. Happiness is a direction, not a place. Christie Tournet and her team make the journey ahead feel less like a stony road and more like a gentle brook—a safe passage into all that happens next. To begin the conversation with Christie Tournet at Christie Tournet & Associates, call 985-951-2177, email christie@tournetlaw.com, or visit tournetlaw.com. The firm is located at 4040 Desoto Street in Mandeville and serves families throughout St. Tammany Parish and the Greater New Orleans area with estate planning, successions and probate, elder law, special-needs planning, trusts, and related services.

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RIDING IN STYLE ARTICLE BY CHRISTIAN GEORGE, PHD PHOTOGRAPHY BY TOMMY BENNETT VIDEO AND TYLER DUPLECHIN

INSIDE THE LIFE OF BL AINE NOL AN, T H E M A N B E H I N D B L E U B AY O U, O N E O F A M E R I C A’ S M O S T C E L E B R AT E D C U S T O M M U S TA N G S Ask Blaine Nolan what he’d take for Bleu Bayou, his nationally celebrated 1969 Ford Mustang, and his answer is pure John Wick. “She’s not for sale.” In three years, the one-off icon has earned nearmythic acclaim. It was featured in the History Channel’s one-hour special, SEMA: Battle of the Builders, commanded a 20-page spread in Wheel Hub, was crowned the 2025 ISCA International Class Champion in Semi Hardtop, and won enough trophies to need its own passenger seat. But none of it prepares you to behold the car itself. Beneath its Yachting Blue halo sleeps an apocalypse of power: a 666-horsepower supercharged Roush 5.0-liter Coyote—enough torque to tempt Jesus Himself to take the wheel. Yet while Bleu Bayou was canonized as American muscle royalty, the man behind the machine, Mandeville’s Blaine Nolan, has remained largely outside the frame. Until now. CONTINUED >

GA R AGE T E CH | AUTO + MARIN E

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IGNITION

Before Bleu Bayou had a name, Blaine Nolan rode shotgun in another Ford: his father’s service truck, rolling from job to job in and around Crowley, Louisiana. His father was a well-known water-well contractor who knew all the farmers, the sheriff, and nearly everyone between. His mother raised three boys and, for a time, worked at the local newspaper. She typed. His father drilled. Blaine wanted to know how everything worked. “I was always a hands-on kid,” he says. “Always digging things up, tearing apart everything.” Blaine played nearly every sport, staying out so late that his parents had to drag him indoors for the night. When his father handed him money for fireworks, Blaine sprinted to the stand, bought what he could, lit the fuse, then ran back for more. Buy. Light. Repeat. Stillness never stood much of a chance. “You’re living too fast,” his father would say. “Slow down, Blaine.” Blaine’s reply comes just as quickly. “I’m not slowing down. I just have one life to live.”

A LIFE OF SERVICE

For the Nolans, life was local before local became branding.

GA R AGE T E CH | AUTO + MARIN E

“On most Sundays, my father drove to the Christian Care Center,” Blaine recalls. “He’d collect bread and groceries pulled from store shelves but still good, then carry them to families who could use them.” During the week, his father brought water out of the ground. On Sundays, he carried bread to people. “My parents loved serving,” Blaine says. “Running concessions. Running fundraisers. You name it. They taught me what life was supposed to be about.” Service ran deep in the family. Great-uncles served in Korea and Vietnam, and one of them belonged in some way to the company connected to the flag raising at Iwo Jima. “What did your parents give you most?” I ask. Blaine pauses. “They were always there,” he says. “Mom and Dad were always there for us.”

THE CHASSIS

If his parents taught Blaine the power of presence, his high school football coach taught him what to do once he arrived. Lewis “Louie” Cook Jr. had a gift for finding the strength hidden inside a young man. His career later inspired Gaylon H. White’s Coach of a Lifetime, with a foreword by Nick Saban. CONTINUED > S EP TEMB ER 2 0 2 6 | C I TYL I FE STYL E . C OM/M A N D E V I L L E

“He could extract every ounce from you without you even realizing it,” Blaine says. “He saw things in you that you couldn’t see in yourself. He was the best coach.” After one difficult game, Cook gave Blaine a sentence he would carry for the rest of his life. “You can be pleased, but never satisfied.” The words followed him into college, where he studied engineering, and then into construction, when a contractor offered him nearly three times the salary. Then in 2003, after several years learning the industry, Blaine opened his own contracting business in Mandeville. Success gave him plenty to be pleased about. He had a thriving company, a wonderful marriage, and two children.

THE WANT

“It starts with a want,” Blaine says. “Not a need, but a want. Then that want grows.” It grows through conversation, photographs, and half-serious ideas that become increasingly expensive. Then someone finds the donor. “That’s when it gets real,” he says. “Now you either pull the trigger or you don’t.” The call came from a builder. They had found a drivable 1969 Mustang fastback. Blaine pulled the trigger.

NOT A COPY

Blaine had no interest in the more fashionable 1967. “Everybody’s got a ’67,” he says.

GA R AGE T E CH | AUTO + MARIN E

The 1969 was longer. Sharper. Curved without becoming soft. To Blaine, it was the most balanced Mustang Ford ever made and he knew exactly who he wanted to build it. Jonathan Goolsby runs Goolsby Customs in Hueytown, Alabama, outside Birmingham. The award-winning shop transforms classic hot rods and muscle cars from bare frame to finished masterpiece beneath one roof. Its previous 1969 Mustang won the 2016 Goodguys Street Machine of the Year. Blaine wanted one just like it. Goolsby refused. “Let’s build you your own car,” he said. “Not a copy car.” That meant preserving the unmistakable shape of 1969 while rebuilding almost everything beneath its skin. The wheels didn’t need reinventing. They just needed to spin in a new direction. “How about we do the car in red?” Blaine asked. Goolsby refused. Red, he believed, would overpower the car they were trying to create. If Blaine insisted, he could find another builder. “Then build whatever you want,” Blaine told him. And just like that, a man accustomed to managing crews, budgets, and construction sites surrendered control of the most personal object he had ever commissioned.

CUSTOM FIT

The build took four years. Early on, the Goolsby team placed Blaine inside the unfinished Mustang to measure seat height, headroom, sightline, and reach. He would not see the car again until the big reveal.

While Blaine waited, Goolsby Customs cut out the floors, channeled a Roadster Shop chassis into the body, and welded the Mustang back into a single, low-slung piece. They installed a supercharged Roush 5.0-liter Coyote tuned to 666 horsepower, a Bowler six-speed manual transmission, Baer brakes, and one-off Forgeline wheels. The exterior emerged in BASF Yachting Blue, sharpened by Storm Gray accents. Inside, chocolate leather covered the seats, dash, steering wheel, and panels. The factory lines remained, but every surface had been tightened, lowered, lengthened, or refined. It looked aggressive without shouting and modern without vanishing. A gentleman’s hot rod with the devil under its hood. Then the builders gave her a name. Bleu Bayou.

THE REVEAL

Four years later, on Halloween morning in 2023, Bleu Bayou waited beneath a black cover inside the BASF booth at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, the sprawling annual spectacle where the custom-car world comes to inspect, admire, and judge its own. “I was sweating bullets,” Blaine says. “I’d only seen a rendering.” Then the cover came off. His knees nearly gave out. “I was covered with emotion,” he says. “It was almost like seeing your child born.” He climbed inside, studied the stitching, touched the emblem and gas cap. Then circled the car again. It was familiar and impossible: unmistakably a 1969 Mustang, unmistakably Blaine, yet beyond anything he imagined. Blue was the right color after all.

BATTLE OF THE BUILDERS

While Blaine was packing to fly home, the judges began calling. Bleu Bayou reached the Battle of the Builders Top 40. Then the Top 12. Then the Top 3. The unknown car was ranked among the three finalists in SEMA’s Hot Rod/Hot Rod Truck category, one of the most prestigious custom-car competitions in the country. “We lost by one vote to a seven-million-dollar Buick,” he says proudly. The car was the 1964 Buick Invicta Custom X-60, a nine-year build by Andy Leach and CAL Automotive Creations. It won Blaine’s category, then took the overall 2023 Battle of the Builders title. Bleu Bayou had arrived at SEMA known to the world and unseen by her owner. But she left as one of America’s finest custom cars.

VICTORY LAP

Under Blaine’s agreement with Goolsby, the shop kept the Mustang for another year and toured her across the country on the Goodguys circuit. City after city, trailer doors opened, velvet ropes rose, and crowds gathered around the Yachting Blue debutant. The trophies followed her home. Builder’s Choice in Nashville. Best Custom in Birmingham. Best Metal Fabrication and Best of Show in Texas. First Place and Outstanding Custom in Houston. A Barrett-Jackson Cup

invitation. The 2025 ISCA International Class Championship in Semi Hardtop. Magazines and television shows came calling. By the tour’s end, Bleu Bayou could idle into any stadium without needing an introduction.

A LEGACY OF TRANSMISSION

Not all of Blaine’s best work fits inside a trophy case. For four seasons, he has coached Fontainebleau High School’s offensive line. “I love the game,” Blaine says. “I feel like I have something to give back.” In addition to teaching young men football tactics, he also teaches them about life, transmitting to the next generation lessons he learned along the way. “It’s easy to tell people what they want to hear,” Blaine says. “But when a kid trusts you with a question, you owe him honesty.” Blaine often tells his players: “Character isn’t what you do while people are watching. Anybody can walk the right line in public. Character is what you do behind the curtain when nobody is watching.” So what does Blaine do when nobody is watching? He runs a play learned long before he ever became a coach. The boy who once rode shotgun on Sunday food runs through Crowley now brings a life of service to his community and family. His father made the handoff. Blaine is still carrying it downfield. CONTINUED > S EP TEMB ER 2 0 2 6 | C I TYL I FE STYL E . C OM/M A N D E V I L L E

CONTROLLED COMBUSTION

When Blaine isn’t working in his office or winning a car competition, there’s a good chance you’ll find him lighting up the night sky. The boy who once sprinted to the fireworks stand with his father’s money now designs professional displays, engineering each shell, fuse, and explosion into a single choreography of controlled combustion. One year, his canvas was the sky above Beau Chêne’s Fourth of July display. Other times, a friend who owns a fireworks company hires him to shoot fifteen-minute shows. As faces tilt upward, the magic is instantaneous for the kids. And for a few incandescent minutes, even grown-ups become children again. “It’s like cooking the perfect meal and watching somebody enjoy your food,” Blaine says. “You put together the perfect show, and everybody oohs and aahs.”

INTO THE BLUE

UNDER THE HOOD Bleu Bayou began as a 1969 Ford Mustang fastback and emerged four years later from Goolsby Customs in Hueytown, Alabama, as a one-off study in controlled power. Beneath its BASF Yachting Blue body sits a Roadster Shop Fast Track chassis, Baer Pro+ brakes, and a supercharged Roush 5.0-liter Coyote producing 666 horsepower. A Bowler T56 six-speed manual sends that power to a GearFX nine-inch rear end. Forgeline wheels wear Michelin Pilot Sport tires, while the cabin combines chocolate leather, Classic Instruments gauges, Vintage Air, and JBL sound. Extended rocker panels, tucked bumpers, custom vents, and machined taillights sharpen the original silhouette without erasing it. The result is unmistakably 1969, its original muscle refined into something lower, cleaner, meaner, and more exact.

“CHARACTER IS WHAT YOU DO BEHIND THE CURTAIN WHEN NOBODY IS WAT CHING.” 26

GA R AGE T E CH | AUTO + MARIN E

When I ask Blaine what sixth gear feels like in Bleu Bayou, he does not mention speed. “When you drop it into sixth,” he says, “that’s when you sit back and enjoy the ride. The revolutions fall. The noise softens. All that power settles into something smooth enough to carry you home. To me, sixth gear is time with my wife, Kelly, and our two kids, Brandon and Blair. It’s taking a trip, having coffee with my mom, and simply enjoying the people I love. Family is, and always will be, my foundation. My overdrive.” Bleu Bayou still wins competitions, but Blaine’s finest work happens outside the frame: beside young men learning to hold the line, beneath a sky filled with wonder, and among people he serves without anyone noticing. “What happens next?” I ask. “Where does the road lead?” “Ireland,” Blaine says. “Back to my roots. I can’t wait to meet an Irish Nolan.” He gives himself ten more years in business, enough time to put a few things in place, finish what remains unfinished, and perhaps retire. The word “retire” lands uneasily. Then Blaine settles into it. Re-tire. And perhaps that’s where we’ll find him next. Driving along an Irish coast with the wind around him, the sea beside him, and enough blue above him to make his Mustang feel at home.

Studio location provided by Nicholas Beesley of Beesley Motorcars S EP TEMB ER 2 0 2 6 | C I TYL I FE STYL E . C OM/M A N D E V I L L E

GET INSPIRED E AT & D R I N K SHOP LOCAL YOU R D IGITAL D ESTINATION FOR LOCAL LIVING

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OLD WALL, NEW TRICKS ARTICLE BY PAM REID

HANG UP THE OLD WAY AND TRY A GALLERY WALL HANGING SYSTEM IN YOUR HOME.

One of my happy places is sitting in front of a museum wall gallery. I can admire art for hours, and if I’m with a friend, there’s no telling how long we’ll sit, reflect, and share our individual perspectives. If you’ve admired gallery wall displays in magazines, catalogs, or on social media and would like to create one in your home, it’s much easier than you might think.

MATERIALS YOU WILL NEED:

DESIGNING YOUR GALLERY WALL

CREATIVE ARRANGEMENTS

The first step in creating a gallery wall is planning. Start by selecting a theme or color scheme that complements your space. Themes can be as varied as black-and-white photographs, abstract paintings, or a mix of personal and artistic prints.

The arrangement of your gallery wall can follow several patterns, depending on your taste: • Linear: Artworks are hung in a straight line at eye level, creating a clean and orderly appearance. • Grid: Perfect for a collection of similarly sized frames, this layout emphasizes structure and uniformity. • Salon Style: This more traditional arrangement involves layering pieces closely together, often extending across the wall. It’s ideal for creating a rich, filled look.

• A gallery wall hanging system, which typically includes mounting rails, cables or rods, and hooks. You can find them pretty much anywhere, online or at your local home improvement store. • A collection of frames and artwork. • A level, measuring tape, and perhaps a laser pointer for precision.

INSTALL ATION TIPS: 01 MEASURE YOUR SPACE: Carefully measure the wall space where you want to install the gallery. Consider the height and width available, keeping in mind furniture and other room features.

02 LAY IT OUT: Arrange your artwork on the floor to finalize your layout. This “dry run” is crucial to get a feel for how the pieces will interact with one another. I like to use painter’s tape to create a visual of what my display will look like on the walls.

03 INSTALL THE RAILS AND HANG YOUR ART: Following the manufacturer’s instructions, mount the rails at the top of your wall. Ensure they are level and securely attached. Attach cables or rods to the rails, then use hooks to hang your frames. The beauty of the system is that you can adjust the height and position easily.

04 BALANCE AND SYMMETRY: Step back to view your layout from different angles. Adjust the spacing and alignment as needed to achieve visual balance.

H OM E U P DAT E | HO ME + D E SIGN

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SEPTEMBER 2026

events A SELECTION OF UPCOMING LO C A L E V E N T S

WEDNESDAYS

Wednesday Run Club Weekly Run/Walk Mandeville Trailhead Community Market, 675 Lafitte St. | 6:00 PM Join the Wednesday Run Club at the Mandeville Trailhead for a weekly group run welcoming all paces, ages and experience levels. Walkers and runners meet to move together and connect with a supportive community that also participates in local races and social outings throughout the year. The group gathers every Wednesday at the Trailhead and begins moving at 6:15 p.m. TUESDAYS - SUNDAYS THR OUGH SEPTEMBER 5TH

Egg Hatching Experience at Insta-Gator Ranch & Hatchery 74645 Allen Rd, Covington | 1:00 PM Witness a baby alligator’s first moments at Insta-Gator Ranch & Hatchery. Guests can help a hatchling emerge from its egg, hold it and watch its first swim while learning about Louisiana’s conservation program. Offered Tuesday-Sunday through September 5. Price: $149 individual, $29 hatching helper. Reservations required. Guided ranch tours and additional handson experiences may also be added.

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events

CONTINUED SEPTEMBER 18TH - OCTOBER 4 T H

Evangeline Theater presents “Proof” Evangeline Theater Company, 2635 N. Causeway Blvd., Mandeville | 7:30 PM David Auburn’s Proof follows Catherine, who sacrificed her academic ambitions to care for her brilliant but mentally ill mathematician father. After his death, a groundbreaking proof raises questions of authorship, genius and trust. Performances run September 18 through October 4 at Evangeline Theater Company in Mandeville. Thursday-Saturday shows begin at 7:30 p.m.; Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets: $32 reserved seating. SEPTEMBER 18TH - NOVEMBER 6T H

Mandeville Live! Fall Free Friday Concerts Mandeville Trailhead Amphitheater, 675 Lafitte St. | 6:30 PM Kick off the weekend at the Mandeville Trailhead with Mandeville Live! Free Friday Concerts. Voodoo Gumbo performs September 18, followed by the Phunky Monkeys September 25. Concerts run from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Bring blankets and lawn chairs, arrive early, and enjoy food and drinks available for purchase. Outside food, beverages and coolers are not permitted. Admission is always free. SEPTEMBER 19 TH

2026 Real Superheroes of Safe Harbor Gala The Harbor Center, 100 Harbor Center Blvd, Slidell | 7:00 PM Join Safe Harbor’s Real Superheroes Gala on Saturday, September 19, at 7 p.m. at the Harbor Center in Slidell. The evening features live and silent auctions, live music and opportunities to support survivors of domestic violence. Proceeds benefit Safe Harbor’s emergency assistance, advocacy, education and supportive services, helping individuals and families rebuild safer, more hopeful lives across the Northshore community.

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