‘We have to live in this house’

Remember the “Let’s Go Riding Franklin Reunion” in the city back in the early 2000s?
There were three such events, brainchild of Chad Boutte, a Charenton native, and Chris Mensman, with 2,000 attendees estimated.
Boutte had moved to New Orleans around that time. He reminisced about his younger years when his generation, and others, rode through Franklin from the Sonic to the St. Mary Parish Courthouse and back again, stopping to chat with friends, all in good-natured fun.
He and Mensman decided to recreate those rides of yesteryear, “just to see everybody again. I gave it a shot, and it was a gigantic success.”
Though only three rides were held, Boutte said, “It’s always been in my blood, to try to help revive the place I grew up in. It’s a beautiful, beautiful town.”
He and Steven Mora relocated to Las Vegas for a time, in the entertainment industry, but the economy nosedived and that put a dent in entertainment-based consumer spending. “So it was time to go,” he said.
After much consideration, they settled on New Orleans, post-Katrina. “There was a lot of hype in the rebuilding process, and ‘come move back,’ the first couple of years after that storm,” Boutte said. “If you took the gamble and won, and a lot of people did, you scored big.”
Boutte and Mora used their experience in entertainment augmented by the vast and legendary mystique of New Orleans, which they taught themselves as well as in classes at Delgado. In effect, they became history buffs. They started working for others, on Segway motorized tours, bicycle tours, bus tours, and “then realized that we had learned our craft enough…that there was no reason for us not to do it on our own.”
Mora’s tour base grew exponentially, to the point of either turning customers away or grow.
“We knew that we were getting tons of reviews with the company we were working with,” Mora said. “And we thought, these people are making so much money, and we’re getting all the reviews, why don’t we try to get the ticket price and the reviews? Today we can’t supply the demand. It’s about good workers, the right people, the right mix, the right culture.”
Along the way, they came to Franklin to look at some commercial properties, which did not happen. “So we got back in the truck, came around the corner here, and said, ‘Oh, look at that house, it’s for sale.’”
That was at the corner of Adams and First Street, and its name is Trowbridge House.
They contacted the realtor agent, who gave them a preview of the house and Boutte recalls, “Fifteen minutes later we looked at each other and said, ‘We have to live in this house.’ The business opportunity we were thinking about would not have brought us to Franklin. The house brought us here.”
Boutte and Mora figured they’d split their time 30% in Franklin and the rest in New Orleans but “you find yourself on the house’s gallery, in the trees, and you’re like, ‘What am I doing?’ So now it’s 95%.”
The “Revitalize Franklin” initiative that the City of Franklin’s mayor, council and staff have embarked upon was in full swing, and Boutte and Mora caught the fever. “It’s going well, we’re in love with the city, we’re in love with the house, and there’s a lot of people working on revitalizing Franklin,” Boutte said.
Considering that, Boutte and Mora have become active in the movement. “I think it’s just a matter of making Franklin known,” Boutte said. “All you need are those gigantic billboards, plantation homes on it, historic Main Street, shopping, lights. We really want to work with whomever and make all that stuff a reality.”
It’s a start, Mora said. “We just want to help, and it takes two, three years to get that going. For people to expect that it just happens, no, it doesn’t work that way.”
Then there’s the house.
“The house, in 1999, was restored by Billie Smardon, we’re told that was a $2 million project,” Boutte said. “She wanted to bring it back to the original architectural design, layout and even colors…when she bought the house the kitchen was attached to the dining room.”
That wasn’t correct, so Smardon had the original foundation located and the kitchen relocated to its original, historic location just behind.
She later donated the house to St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, across the street. “I guess she didn’t want to go with the maintenance cost and sold it,” Mora said.
It was rarely used over that time, and sold it to Boutte and Mora. “It needed some cosmetic stuff, but this is how we got it,” Mora said. “The outside needs some love, some rot, not anything major though. Everything’s solid, wooden peg construction. We’re not going to let anybody else buy this house!”
“We’ve been told it should be a hurricane evacuation house,” Boutte said. “It’s survived all these hurricanes since 1840! We’ve been collecting things for the house, finding pieces, we want to personalize it with our family history, but really trying to focus on the Trowbridge history…we’ve found very little information about this house.”
“We want to meet some of the Trowbridges, sit down with them, if they have pictures…we can’t find any pictures of this house prior to today, basically,” Mora said.
They even have some of the shoemaking tools Boutte’s grandfather used in his business in Charenton, near the Post Office; his uncle had the meat market there, and two other uncles had the grocery store and the barber shop.
A portrait of Isaac Trowbridge, the Connecticut-native builder of the house in 1840, hangs in the den, of which both are proud.
For years, the Episcopal Church’s “Blessing of the Pets” has been held on the grounds of Trowbridge House, and continues to this day. “When we moved in we realized there was a connection with this property,” Boutte said. “So we said, if anything that’s ever happened at the house that’s special to this church, there’s no reason to change it, just do it. They were super excited about that.”
Both are members of Franklin’s Bicentennial Committee. They have shepherded a giveaway of live oak trees to private property owners. Fifty trees were donated.
“That started with a visit to the Soil and Water Conservation office by mistake looking for the 4-H office to talk about the soil,” Boutte said. “Turns out they plant the trees along the streets in different areas…they asked for ideas for different projects.”
There are plans to plant oaks along La. 182 from Walgreens to Caffery Curve as well, and other locations.
“It’s probably my favorite project that I’ve worked on,” Boutte said. “To a lot of people it’s just a live oak, but it’s a climate tree, it provides shade, helps the environment. It’s more than just planting tree.”
Mora’s involvement with the bicentennial event includes a segment on Hispanic persons in the area, which is his own lineage. “There’s Latino to Spanish, and we want to get them involved in the project,” he said. “Between mid-September and mid-October, somehow if we can get permitted to close off the street we’ll have a big festival, get vendors in here, a fun day. That’ll be kinda my thing. September 16 is Mexican Independence Day, to celebrate Spanish culture.”
“Obviously it’s a part of Franklin that continues to grow,” Boutte added. “We’ve always been the gumbo pot of culture.”
Both agree that Trowbridge House is home now, as well as Franklin. “There’s still that little spark,” Boutte said. “It’s like, ‘What are you doing for Franklin?’”
“When we heard Franklin was having a revitalization, like what we did in New Orleans, why can’t we do something here?” Mora said.
Both proclaimed that they were warmly welcomed in the city. “That was a scary thing for us,” Boutte said. “All excited, got the house, and…uh-oh, what if they don’t like us, what if they’re racist, I mean, there’s a million things in your mind, but it didn’t turn out that way.
“That’s something that I commend the city for. We live our life just as normal and peaceful as possible, but there’s still that piece in the back of your mind going, ‘You know, it’s a vicious world out there. It could go south. It could go bad.
“It has been completely the opposite. Sometimes you just wake up in the morning and just pinch yourself. It works. It’s a community that truly has embraced anybody that wants to be here.”
Mora said he hopes to help others create businesses in the city, and promote growth.
“Anybody can do it, start your own thing, get people inspired, how to do a resume, that’ll come down the line.”