Enthusiastic world travelers Garrick and Darcie Braai have collections of artwork and mementos from their travels with their young sons to such far-off places as Thailand, New Zealand and Iceland. Of all of their collectibles, however, the most attention is garnered by artifacts unearthed in their own yard, behind their 1896 four-bay Victorian shotgun double in Algiers Point.
“When I took the plaster off the fireplace, I exposed the brick,” Garrick Braai said. “A few bricks were broken, but I couldn’t just go out and buy hard tan bricks at Home Depot, so I called this guy I had heard about who goes around digging up privies and selling off what he finds. I thought he might have some bricks.”
Garrick and Darcie Braai shown on a vacation to Olympic National Park in Washington State.
A friendship with Shane Mears ensued. Soon, Mears, aided by a Robinson Atlas detailing the area before the Great Fire of 1895 wiped out 200 buildings, was in the yard digging up the privy (outhouse) that had served the home that had burned on the site where the Braais’ house now stands.
“He explained that they would throw in the privy anything they couldn’t burn,” Braai said. “The hole in the ground would have been lined with cypress, which would have kept many things intact.”
The living room, where the family gathers to relax, displays antique bottles, several inkwells and other relics dug from the backyard where the old privy used to be.
Mears excavated old medicine and liquor bottles, pickle jars, bricks, marbles, china plates, toys, inkwells and a toothbrush carved from bone.
The two men then divided up the treasures. The Braais’ collection of over 100 glass and pottery pieces is artfully displayed against the walls that Darcie Braai, a Realtor, painted in slate-colored gloss to highlight the shimmering colors of the old glassware. The Braais struggle to figure out what to call the room.
“Is it the Privy, the Library or the Family Room?” Darcie Braai mused. “We just can’t decide.”
The cypress that once lined the waterlogged privy has joined a collection of household artifacts Garrick Braai is assembling as a sort of museum of the house. It includes old nails, slate roofing tiles and dated newspapers he found stuffed in the fireplace flue.
“I get excited about all old things,” he said, “but it’s the bottles everyone gets excited about.” The vessels date from 1840 to 1890.
On one side of the front parlor, which is divided by the to-the-ceiling fireplace, the featured artwork is a Caliche and Pao oil painting purchased from their gallery on Royal Street. Tree carvings on the mantel came from just outside North Cascades National Park in Washington. The family vacationed last year in Washington and California and visited about a half dozen national parks.
lifornia and visited about a half dozen national parks.
The couple — he from Old Gretna, she from Roatán, Bay Islands, Honduras — bought the home in spring 2020. “I always wanted to live on Algiers Point,” he said. “We had been looking for a house, and I wanted to find one on the point of the Point near the ferry landing. This one was move-in ready.”
Previous homeowners had thoughtfully renovated it from a double into a single-family home. They updated the home’s utilities, kitchen and bathrooms, and added handmade, operable stained-glass transom windows above all the interior doors.
The look remains in keeping with the house’s historic character while adding vibrant bursts of color that play against local works by artists Becky Fos, Ellen McCord, Caliche and Pao, and Joe Mustachia.
The dining table is a favorite piece, purchased before the couple bought their home. ‘We saw it and said “whatever house we purchased it had to fit!” A quilt by local artist B. Fos hangs on the wall. Chandeliers are from Arhaus.
“They kept the house’s historic character in the renovation,” Garrick Braai said. “They treated it with respect. It still has all its original woodwork, mantels and pocket doors. The walls are a combination of Sheetrock and plaster.”
A collection of indoor plants thrives throughout the home due to the abundance of natural light from numerous windows.
In the future, the couple plans to camelback the house to make more room for their two sons.
“We want to keep everything as original as possible. We have 10 feet of property on either side of the house to work with,” Garrick Braai said.
“But one thing we will never change is the color,” Darcie Braai said. “Our sons call this ‘The Yellow House.’”
SPRING TOUR OF HOMES
What: The Preservation Resource Center’s self-guided tour of six Algiers Point homes, presented by Entablature Design + Build. Special guided architectural tours also are offered.
Where: Starting point is Bargeboard NOLA, 530 Powder St.
When: April 5-6, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.