Moonlighting at the Mansion

By Stephen Kelly, managing editor

Van Benthuysen-Elms Mansion and garden on St. Charles Ave., New Orleans, site of the 18th Annual LAF Benefit Dinner. A person could get a suntan off the foyer floor. European period furnishings and an ?EUR??,,????'??authentic copper wind chimer?EUR??,,????'?? that ?EUR??,,????'??once hung from the ceiling of a Chinese temple during the Boxer Rebellion?EUR??,,????'?? dominate. Let the eating commence. The Empire room, site of the main buffet, has a large marble fireplace and beautiful mahogany woodwork and moldings. Photos courtesy of the Van Benthuysen Elms Mansion and Gardens.

While New Orleans is synonymous with the French Quarter, I found myself more intrigued by the Garden District while I was in town for the ASLA Expo with the LASN editorial and sales staff. Just west of the French Quarter, the Garden District was settled by prosperous Yankees after the U.S. purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1803.

Know then as Lafayette, the northerners built large, columned mansions and planted gardens adorned with magnolias, oaks and palms. The fragrances of the gardens were particularly appreciated in those early years to mitigate the stockyard stench wafting from the Mississippi River.

My introduction to the Garden District was a Thursday night ?EUR??,,????'??Moonlight Masquerade?EUR??,,????'?? garden party, more prosaically know, but no less worthy, as the 18th Annual LAF Benefit Dinner. The American Landscape Fund (LAF) ?EUR??,,????'??fosters an ethic for shaping our land and enriching the human spirit by designing landscapes that enhance our environment and our lives?EUR??,,????'?? with the generous support of landscape architects, firms and suppliers.

The LAF chose the Van Benthuysen-Elms Mansion on St. Charles Ave. for the affair. I was told you could get there via streetcar, but feeling adventurous, went via Hertz. Once negotiating the St. Charles roundabout, a road that goes in a complete circle and allows you to get off in various places, the mansion was easy to find with its well lit perimeter in the dark, gothic neighborhood (Ann Rice of vampire fame has two homes in the district).

The mansion, the guide book informed me, was an elegant, European style home of marble fireplaces and stained-glass windows built in 1869 by architect Lewis Reynolds for Watson Van Benthuysen II, a New Yorker who had moved to New Orleans in the 1840s and became an officer in the Confederate Army. Van Benthuysen was a relative by marriage of the president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis. Davis often stayed at the home. As I walked down a dark side street past a large oak and turned toward the property, drawn by the sounds of live music, for a chilling moment I felt the presence of the spirit of Davis?EUR??,,????'??+just kidding, but it was after all Halloween eve.

At the mansion I was warmly greeted and presented with my name tag. To the right was a four-piece band playing under the gazebo in the garden area where tables and an informal bar, busy as a landscape architectural rendering, were set up. I climbed the steps to the front door and entered a wood floored foyer that verily gleamed. The mansion was ornately decorated and immaculately restored. I learned the furnishing were imported European period pieces and original tapestries.

To my immediate right was what looked like a drawing room, the Empire room, on this night the pasta room. To the left was a mirrored room (a favorite for the quests, as this was the coffee and dessert room), aka the Louis XVI room, an appellation in keeping with the French consoles and mirrors.

A little further down the foyer to the right was the site of the main dining room, a elegant venue for the night?EUR??,,????'???s buffet. A crystal chandelier, a replica of the one hanging in the Napoleon room of the Grand Trianon in Paris, allowed the guests to generally identify the food they were putting on their plates. A magnificent oak mantle and fireplace adorned the room.

Exiting the empire room right led to a staircase rising to a stained glass window. To the left of the staircase was the ballroom and another gleaming wood floor. It was easy to imagine nineteenth century waltzers three-stepping here, but the modern bar to the right was at odds with that period.

Inside and out, the guests partook of the buffets and the Cajun and Creole hors d?EUR??,,????'???oeuvres. Some huddled at the fortune teller?EUR??,,????'???s station; others got readings from the handwriting analyst; there was imbibing of spirits at the outside bar; others, those with more refined (sugar) tastes, trolled the dessert tables; all enjoyed the music, the balmy night and the Southern hospitality. Some briefly wore the proffered masquerade masks that covered the eyes and nose and, well, made you look silly. It was a convivial get-together in pleasant surroundings with landscape architects from all across the country, decked out in their best duds comparing notes and looking forward to the ASLA Expos. All proceeds (registration, plus bar tab, physic and handwriting analyses) going to help support LAF?EUR??,,????'???s programs. Last?EUR??,,????'???s year?EUR??,,????'???s event in San Jose, ?EUR??,,????'??The Great Escape,?EUR??,,????'?? earned $23,000. Susan Everett, FASLA, LAF executive director, told me the benefit dinner in New Orleans raised $33,000.

The ballroom, formerly a library, shows off a large Italian sandstone fireplace, a ceiling supported by Doric columns, a bar, and an alcove. During the LAF Benefit, a man played jazz standards on the piano in the alcove.

See you at the LAF benefit next year in Salt Lake.

[The Landscape Architecture Foundation is located at 818 18th St. NW, Suite 810, Washington, D.C. 20006; tel: 202 331-7070; www.lafoundation.org. For more information on the Van Benthuysen-Elms Mansion, go to www.elmsmansion.com.]