Elenore and Ian Falshaw own not one but two units in the red brick condominium building at 330 Morgan Street and they’re not even next to one another. The one in which the Falshaws live was on the 2024 Algiers Point Association home tour and is on the second floor. But the one tour-goers will visit this weekend is on the third floor of the early 1990s era building. The Falshaws call it the “guest condo.”
“We bought it so that we could have both of our grown children visit at the same time,” Elenore said. “Eddie is 28 and a musician, actor and bartender in New York, and Maggie is 26 and teaches second grade in Chicago. We just couldn’t accommodate both of them at the same time if we hadn’t bought the second condo.”
The plan was to convert a one bedroom, one and a half bath unit to a two bedroom space having two full baths.
The unit had been renovated recently, so it did not require the “gut rehab” the couple undertook on the downstairs unit.
“We worked with Bobby and Kristin Palmer of Bargeboard on the project,” elenore said. “They came up with some great ideas for us.”
One enters the unit via a short hallway, at the end of which is a bench with cubbies beneath. A right turn leads to a large open space that includes the living room and kitchen.
Rather than divide up the space to create a second bedroom, they installed a Murphy bed instead in the living room. When it pulls down, there’s a shelving unit behind it displaying some of the couple’s treasures.
Also in the living room there’s a window seat that lifts up and has storage beneath.
Most striking is the immense cypress table that doubles as an island, made in the Bargeboard mill shop.
According to Elenore, most of the furnishings came from the Verret Street cottage the family lived in after Ian was transferred there. There’s a handsome leather sofa, an amoeba shaped coffee table, and a fanciful drawer unit that Elenore said has serve many purposes.
“When the children were little we could put their toys in there and keep them out of sight. Now it accommodates videos and books.”
Ian was transferred here in 2001 by ED&F Man, the commodities trader for whom he still works. Elenore worked for 19 years in development for McGehee before becoming the chief development officer for the New Orleans Museum of Art.
Colors in the living room and kitchen are neutral. But in the bedroom and en suite bath, Elenore chose Farrow and Ball’s “soaking tub pink.” In the second bath, “peignor” covers the walls.
Everywhere there are shelves and places to put things.
“It was one of the best things about working with Bargeboard. Kristin has such a great eye and she has ideas of what can work and what won’t,” Elenore said.
“The kitchen truly is the heart of the condo. It was OK before, but now it’s stunning because of the shelves that Bargeboard added and the big cypress table that doubles as an island they made for us in their mill shop,” Elenore said.
There’s artwork throughout the condo, including an immense work of Barack Obama holding a cocktail glass on the wall above the long sleek console that serves as a bar in the living room. But Elenore‘s favorite works are portraits of Maggie and Eddie by a high school classmate of Eddie’s named Hill Spriggins.
This coming Christmas holiday will be the test of how well the new place works for their children. According to Elenore, it’s first come, first served as far as who gets to sleep in the bedroom and who gets the Murphy bed. Time will tell.