Taking Another Man’s Trash and Turning It Into Their New-Old NOLA Home

An architecture-obsessed family melds their love of history and penchant for using creative, low-cost materials to build a unique new structure.

Mar 12, 2024 - 14:51
Taking Another Man’s Trash and Turning It Into Their New-Old NOLA Home

An architecture-obsessed family melds their love of history and penchant for using creative, low-cost materials to build a unique new structure.

At first glance, Emilie Taylor and Seth Welty’s New Orleans residence appears to clash with the city’s storied aesthetic.

After outgrowing their Seventh Ward home, the Weltys found an overlooked property near the Mississippi River levee in the city’s Black Pearl neighborhood. "When we saw the house on the lot, it was pretty clear that it was beyond fixing," says Seth. But the plot was unusually large and also near the river and Tulane University, where Emilie serves as the director of the architecture program.

They tore down the existing house and designed a new 2,800-square-foot home composed of two horizontal boxes stacked on the front of the lot. The larger one, capped by an angled roof, is clad in workaday, metal siding. It sits on top of the smaller box, covered in salvaged terra-cotta roof tiles the couple found on Facebook Marketplace and DIYed into place. In other words, it couldn’t look more different from its traditional shotgun house neighbors.

"We have a lot of love and respect for the historic fabric of this city," says Emilie. "But if you were to just replicate what was already there, it’s not as honest or rich as if you built something of your own time and moment."

That said, the home is an amalgamation of salvaged materials and inexpensive, adaptable finishes, an echo of the city’s collective spirit of forming solutions from whatever’s readily available.

The Weltys started construction by having the structure framed out but allowed themselves time to sort through unresolved areas and select finishes. After they spent a year and eight months manipulating materials and playing with textures, their vision finally came together.
The main living area is on the second floor in an open double-height space where the ceiling peaks at 15 feet under an angled roof. It contains an airy kitchen/dining area and a living room. A hallway leads to the primary bedroom, and a loft contains a bedroom for their kids. The ground floor has an apartment they rent to local teachers.
Classic New Orleans elements surface in the design, such as the reclaimed poplar barge plank plucked from the walls of the couple’s previous, 1860s home that is now a shelf in the dining room. They repurposed materials wherever they could to maximize their budget and to experiment­­—another NOLA specialty. A long table made using the wood from a fallen tree in Seth’s dad’s yard anchors the open kitchen and dining area. And the $100 kitchen sink was a Facebook Marketplace find.

See the full story on Dwell.com: Taking Another Man’s Trash and Turning It Into Their New-Old NOLA Home
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