Episode 5054 – New Orleans – Kevin Kelley

Katherine>> Kevin, this place is way over the top. I don’t know when I’ve seen anything like it. Did it look anything like this when you rescued the building?

Kevin Kelley>> Actually, no. It was a fleabag hotel. Rooms were $10 a night and it was a flophouse. This room was a tailor shop and the next room was a salvage shop where you could buy used underwear for $1 and used tennis shoes for $2.

Katherine>> So, you basically gutted the whole thing and started from scratch.

Kevin Kelley>> The entire building was gutted. The only thing original to the building is the brick walls and short of the brick walls, everything was replaced. There’s … steel structure holds up the floors and it’s concrete decking on the floors.

Katherine>> You can see aspects of New Orleans everywhere in the space, starting with the painting behind me.

Kevin Kelley>> This is a painting of the Louisiana Purchase and it’s showing the American flag going up and the French flag going down and it’s in Jackson Square, New Orleans. And it would have shown the entire citizenry of New Orleans, coming to see the celebration...It was a painting that was from the early ‘50s and had been on display in many places up to this. I called a dealer friend of mine who’s … handles paintings and told him I needed a major painting for my entryway. And three days later, he came up with a painting that was nine-foot tall and 20-foot wide, which caused me to change the design of my living room. And then, because I had to open up the walls so that you would be able to see it.

Katherine>> And the dining room is at the back of the space and really, for the size of … your loft, it’s not that big.

Kevin Kelley>> No, it’s only 12-foot wide and it bothered me that I didn’t have a place for a breakfront or a server. So, I put this little wing off on the side here, where I have a breakfront and then underneath the stairway, these brackets pull out and it becomes a buffet table. So, you start on this end and you pick up your plate and you serve your food along the way and then bring it to the dining room table.

Katherine>> Well, that’s ingenious. Great idea. Now, the walls here, are they marble like the floor?

Kevin Kelley>> No, they’re actually sheet-rocked and were faux-painted and they’re to look like slabs of marble on the walls. And the … these colours of burnished yellows, I thought would work real well in this room.

Katherine>> And I can see through the glass doors a courtyard, which is really synonymous with New Orleans. Did you add that to the space, like, take away part of the building so you could get a courtyard?

Kevin Kelley>> Well, there were fire escapes and little bridges and things to get to the different hotel rooms so yes … those were all removed and then I created the courtyard there. But at one time, that was actually a mechanic’s shop.

Katherine>> Unlike most lofts, Kevin, your kitchen is distinctly separate from the rest of the space.

Kevin Kelley>> … yes, it is. This was actually the boiler room for the hotel. And I removed the equipment and there were some things left over that were a bit of a problem. There’s a concrete ceiling. This was a fireproof room. So, I had to modify this room to make it more kitchen-y. So, the reason for the wooden beams up on the ceiling is it hides the lighting, as well as the sprinkler system in the building.

Katherine>> And you’ve got a wonderful island right in the middle of the room. This is obviously an old piece.

Kevin Kelley>> Yes, it’s from about 1760 and it’s a French butcher block. You can see where it’s worn heavily is where the butcher worked and on the opposite side, it’s quite a bit less wearing and that’s where the apprentice would have been.