Amy Hubbell has lived many different places throughout her life: Rome, Chicago, Tampa Bay, Sydney, and more. But she always returns to Algiers Point.
“The last time, I came back for my dad who didn’t want to leave the city after Hurricane Katrina. So I moved back to be near him. I didn’t know that 20 years later I’d still be here!” she said, “but I love it here so much.”
Although Amy wasn’t born in the neighborhood, she has lived here since she was four and her family moved here when her dad retired from the Navy.
“My mother was from the neighborhood and my grandparents lived here then,” Amy said. The library on Pelican Avenue is named the Cita Dennis Hubbell library for Amy’s mother who led the campaign for it to be reopened after it was damaged in Hurricane Betsy.
In about 2009, Amy started looking for a place to buy. She saw a for rent sign on 513 Patterson and called, hoping to persuade the owners to sell it to her rather than lease it. They were steadfast until some time later when they called Any and asked if she still wanted to buy it. They struck a deal and now 513 Patterson is her home.
It is an immense place – 4000 square feet total. She has completely renovated the upstairs with help from Adam Summers, and also part of the downstairs, including the former commercial space at the corner of Patterson and Baumann.
Kevin Herridge, the neighborhood historian, discovered that the building housed a saloon and beer garden from about 1875 to 1884. Called Castle Rock, it was run by Emile Baumann. But in 1902, it became the Algiers Sazerac Saloon that served “oyster loaves and all kinds of sandwiches day and night.” Jack Scherer was the proprietor then. There was also once a tiki bar in the building for the amusement of residents and their friends.
Upstairs, where Amy lives, consists of a large room ringed by floor to ceiling windows that afford a view of the river. Amy enjoys sitting in the room, looking out the windows at the passing ships. “There goes the Creole Queen,” she’ll say or, “Oh I see the Natchez coming!”
Her preferred roost, when weather allows, is outside on the fabulous gallery that wraps around the building and offers a panoramic view of the river.
Inside, the space combines kitchen, dining area, and living room. There are also two bedrooms and a bath.
The renovated kitchen features tall, black striated cabinets that reach all the way up to the 11 foot high ceiling. Black countertops complete the composition for a sleek and sophisticated look.
Throughout the second floor living area, Amy has displayed black-and-white photographs by Herman Leonard, who chronicled so much of jazz history. Her favorite is of Frank Sinatra.
There is also a brooding blue painting on one wall that has a history of its own.
“On the batture, there used to be a place called the African Village, which commemorated the spot where Africans were taken off of slave ships and allowed to rest before going to sale,” she said. It depicted what life would’ve been like in their African villages before they were brought here. “The painting I have was from the fence that encircled the place.”
Amy’s tortoiseshell cat, Minou, likes sleeping on her bed, surrounded by handsome furniture that Amy has painted herself. On display are parts of costumes – some for the Pussyfooters, to which she’s belonged for more than 10 years, and others for the Krewe of Persephone’s Dragonflies, a group that gathers in costume and promenades through the French Quarter the Friday before Mardi Gras.
Amy had architect Heather Ruoss draw up plans for downstairs, and those are now out to bid.
“I’m waiting to see how they come back,” she said. “I’d love to be able to keep downstairs just as a place for guests rather than to rent it out as apartments, but we’ll have to see what the income gods have to say about that.”