A. Hays Town: An Inside View

Close to one year ago the topic here was Louisiana architect A. Hays Town, and featured photographs of five homes he designed. The focus that time was limited to exterior views, and while that perspective establishes a first and basic impression, the Hays Town continuum passes through exterior walls and extends to equally harmonious interiors.

Rounding a curve in the road and catching first sight of a house by Mr Town can in many cases be a view that momentarily takes the breath away. The perfect marriage of landscape and architecture is evident from each and every perspective, with lines and angles from all vantage points revealing elements of classic Louisiana. Exterior walls in the architect’s design mark passage into another phase of the overall vision. More than any interior decorator, it is the style of Hays Town that defines the interior of his houses. Very likely that the decorator walking into a Hays Town home finds half the work already done. The colors are there, the furnishings recommended. In some cases the architect went as far as recommending a dog to complement the design.

The paired photographs above and below show both sides of six different designs by Mr Town. All photos are by Philip Gould from The Louisiana Houses of A. Hays Town. Five of them are from the earlier post, and are paired this time with an interior view. The photos above show exterior and interior views of the architect’s home in Baton Rouge; the picture on the bottom shows a view into the study.

Here are two views of Witter House, the lower photo showing a view of large windows which bring the live oaks practically into the room.

And Sherar House…

…with a peek into the den from a back glassed-in porch.

A beautiful view of Laborde House with its blooming azaleas…

…and the informal dining room; note the brick floor with a beeswax finish, a treatment common in old Louisiana houses.

A view of Strawitz House…

…and the enclosed rear porch. The weathered boards seen in the exterior fence are repeated as horizontal wall planks inside.

Here is look at the classic Louisiana Bonnecaze House…

A dramatic interior that uses old warehouse beams, plank floors and brick arches.

In the Green of Things

Deadline day and the landscape gardeners are doing a botanical boogie-woogie outside putting over one hundred new plants and trees in place across ten different planting areas. In the northeast corner a man wrestles a majestic beauty into place between crinum lilies and bulbine plants, making sure the alignment gives the harmony he is looking for. To the west of that a team of three settle a huge Chinese fan palm into its hole, sprinkling both hole and root system with plant food and beneficial bacteria.

Scattered around the grounds are big bundles of blue-eyed grass and bales of rusty Georgia pine straw. The blue-eyed grass will fill out beds, the straw provide a blanket for newly planted areas and warmth for unsettled roots. The pine straw is also useful in blocking sunlight from sprouts of pesky dollar weed. In this climate dollar weed spreads quickly, like that equally troublesome southern cousin kudzu. For four months the newly planted beds cannot be sprayed with weed killer. The pine straw will help to hold the dollar weed down.

One of the gardeners has dug up two huge rocks, moving them into a Japanese-like arrangement around the newly planted pineapple-guava tree. Blocked from the wind and salt spray there is hope that the rocks will eventually become host to baby ferns and swatches of green moss.

Two desired varieties are missing for the time being. The final design will include orange birds of paradise and white fountain grass, but the first is late arriving and the second arrived in what the head gardener calls a weak and unhealthy condition. The fountain grass will be sent back and those designated areas in the plan will remain empty until March when the new grass arrives.

The white sand beach and ocean blue are now fronted by a new aspect of flowering green and rusty red pine straw. Calls to mind a famous line, “God shed his grace on thee…”

Photos:

(1) giant agave plant being put in

(2) after planting with juniper, pine straw and giant rock

(3) blued-eyed grass in pine straw with bulbine and giant rock