Anais and Marco St. John’s Victorian home, with its vibrant, mood-lifting colors, stands out on Algiers Point. It's not just a house: It's a beacon of joy for the neighborhood.
“I used nine colors — some of them subtle variations on others — on the front of the house. I went with three on the back,” said Marco St. John, a fine artist turned contractor.
Anais St. John has helped lift up the historic neighborhood in her own way. “During the pandemic, my friend Amy suggested I should start entertaining people from my porch,” said the beloved New Orleans singer and multi-talented entertainer. “So, we pulled the piano out onto the porch, and I started singing. It caught on fast.”
St. John is known for her standing performances at The Bombay Club and The Dew Drop Inn as well as her one-woman retrospectives of celebrated Black female performers such as Eartha Kitt, Donna Summer, Tina Turner and Josephine Baker.
Marco, Elle and Anaïs St. John on their Algiers Point porch.
She initially was a mezzo-soprano with the New Orleans Opera, but as a solo artist, she combines jazz, blues and R&B. By day, she is a music teacher at Trinity Episcopal School.
Marco St. John, a painter who also did high-end murals and trompe l’oeil scenery, became a business owner as a housepainter running a crew of other creatives out of post-Hurricane Katrina necessity.
Eighteen years later, he is still working on residential and commercial projects throughout the Gulf South as owner and president of Renaissance Works, a general contracting firm specializing in renovations and restorations.
The palm-shaded backyard pool was a major selling point for the St. Johns.
Lured to the Point
The St. Johns, drawn to Algiers Point in 2012 by the idea of having a yard for their growing family, bought the four-bay home just blocks from the river.
“We had a beautiful home in Touro Bouligny, but we had a baby, and I wanted a yard,” said Anais St. John. Daughter Elle is now 16 and a sophomore at Benjamin Franklin High School.
“A friend suggested I look at this house in her neighborhood. We had never even considered Algiers Point. I didn’t know anything about the West Bank. This had been on the market for a while, but I knew it was right when I saw the pool. That’s what caught my attention."
Their decision to move to Algiers Point was a leap of faith they have never regretted.
“We replaced Magazine Street with the French Quarter. The ferry is right there," said Anais St. John, a Gentilly native.
A purple couch from Ligne Roset, a French contemporary furniture company, is the focal point in one of the twin living spaces. Another sofa from same place upscale seller, this one in blue, highlights the other living space, located on the opposite side of the fireplace.
On the inside
“This place is nothing like it was when we bought it,” said Marco St. John, who left his New York home and came here in the late 1980s to attend Tulane University.
He removed decrepit pocket doors to open the home’s dual double parlors fore to aft and removed walls surrounding the sides of the original fireplaces to open the parlors into one another, side to side.
“I discovered in the process that this middle wall was load bearing,” he said. “Oops, I had to pop in some pillars while I put in these brackets. You never stop learning.”
A bright blue couch from Ligne Roset, a French contemporary furniture company, is the focal point in one of the twin living spaces. Another sofa from same place upscale seller, this one in purple, highlights the other living space, located on the opposite side of the fireplace.
He created the home's deep, multi-layered beveled crown molding throughout all four rooms himself by piecing together strips of standard, commercially available trim.
The highly customized look unifies what was once four spaces. The molding is painted a warm white to offset a vibrant art collection that includes works by St. John, his friends, and celebrated artists including Walter Anderson and Carol Peebles.
The kitchen, with its spiral staircase, is mostly unchanged from how the St. Johns found it. The floor comprises pieces of marble and granite; countertops are of salvaged Ubatuba granite. The staircase lead to the red-themed 'after-party'' room upstairs.
Floor and cabinets are original to house as they bought floors bits of marble and granite stone counters salvaged uba tuba granite figurines on ledges from Sheerwater in ocean springs
He sealed the fireplace hearths using brushed aluminum tile with a holographic effect. It captures and refracts the light pouring in through an abundance of windows and enlivens the couple’s collection of mirrored disco balls.
A design buff, Marco St. John has spent decades scouring upscale furniture stores and markets, online shops and friends’ castoffs to furnish the home. The couple’s collection includes pieces from Ligne Roset, Le Corbusier and Ariana.
Anais St. John loves to plan and throw parties, and she “has a few appetizer-y things I can put together.” She leaves the rest to her husband. “When it came to all the art, design and decoration in the house, I had little say in the matter," she said. “It was fine with me. I just moved in. He does a good job.”
“And I love to cook,” said Marco St. John. “That’s how I snagged her. I’m a great cook, and she was so impressed that all my plates matched.”