World vacationers and enthusiastic collectors, Dr. Warren McKenna and Gail Barnes McKenna enable their passions to drive them in adorning their Mediterranean-style English Flip residence. One or the opposite of them will usually discover one thing they love on a visit, they usually work out later the place the piece will go. The result’s an intensely private residence that displays the heat, class and whimsy of its inhabitants.

For Barnes McKenna, 70, a swish chandelier with bronze crystals impressed a whole redecoration of the couple’s master suite 5 years in the past.

“Warren continues to be ribbing me concerning the ceiling fan we needed to cast off to accommodate the chandelier, however I merely needed to have it. I adore it.”

For McKenna, 79, a retired ophthalmologist, it was a curvaceous Murano glass chandelier and a hand-knotted purple silk rug they discovered in 2017 whereas procuring in San Francisco’s Chinatown. That very same day, they each additionally fell for a shocking Zardozi silk velvet tapestry embroidered with pure gold and silver threads and embellished with valuable stones.

The gadgets sat in storage till the top of 2021 when the McKennas undertook a partial renovation of the house they’ve shared since shortly after their marriage in 2008. The primary order of enterprise was overhauling a surprisingly angled kitchen that had lengthy been a supply of misery for Barnes McKenna, a retired etiquette and life abilities coach for debutantes offered by the Younger Males Illinois Membership.

“I crave clear, straight strains, and I can not stand litter,” Barnes McKenna mentioned. “That kitchen made me loopy.”

“The kitchen was outdated, and it was functionally out of date for them,” mentioned New Orleans designer Penny Francis, who helped with the replace. “Collaborating with contractor Frank Morse, we gutted the house, then backed within the home equipment Gail needed. Then we designed the house round them.”

Randal Shaw, of Nordic Kitchens & Baths, outfitted the kitchen with cabinetry and home equipment, together with a Wolf cooktop and Sub-Zero fridge and freezer. The consequence serves the culinary-minded couple’s calls for for performance and class. The cooktop sits on a 10-foot central island topped in pale quartzite.  

Shaw customized a deep up to date cupboard that dominates a partial wall between the kitchen and the lounge. The towering steel and glass fixture is lit from inside and accommodates the couple’s assortment of household heirlooms, china and crystal.

White cabinetry and a wealth of deep drawers maintain an in depth assortment of culinary implements used for frequent entertaining. The pale quartzite counters are naked save for a twig of blooming orchids. Even the microwave dares not interrupt the clear stream. A brushed stainless mannequin is constructed into the cabinetry and glides out for service.

“I like every little thing instead,” Barnes McKenna mentioned.

Simply outdoors of the kitchen hangs her “most prized possession,” a framed award offered to her by Younger Audiences of Louisiana for her years of volunteer service to the group that gives arts training and integration packages for youngsters. The award is a chunk of artwork crafted by kids in this system.

Elmira White paint by Benjamin Moore was used within the kitchen and to refresh all of the areas on the primary ground, save for the couple’s new grasp rest room, which was painted with Benjamin Moore’s Silver Satin. The luminous house encompasses a floating glass bathe, a soaking tub by H2O Studio, and his-and-hers vainness areas topped with pale grey granite with an emerald vein.

A door leads from the tub to a glamorous 225-square-foot closet with house for the couple’s intensive wardrobes of formal put on, required for his or her charitable efforts for The New Orleans Opera, The New Orleans Ballet Affiliation, Males & Girls of Trend and Younger Audiences of Louisiana. To create the house, Francis used an current closet and enclosed a hallway that when related the main bedroom to a smaller one. Cabinetry and granite counters had been salvaged from the previous kitchen to outfit the brand new dressing space.

Barnes McKenna managed the inside design in the remainder of the house. Within the open front room, two ceiling followers had been sacrificed to accommodate the Murano glass chandelier. The coveted purple silk rug anchors the house. “I don’t know what the sample is or from the place the rug even originated,” McKenna mentioned. “I simply appreciated it after I noticed it.”

A placing pair of sculptural, flared-arm sofas by Caracole Compositions are upholstered in a creamy boucle cloth with a mushy shimmer. The sofas curve to outline the house below the chandelier and provides the room the texture of a lavish nest.

Open-faced cabinetry shows collections of Waterford and Baccarat crystal vases and colourful butterflies in addition to a protracted, horizontal vase from New Orleans artist Julie Juneau.

The Zardozi tapestry will be seen from the room instead of honor on the wall above the touchdown of the cherry staircase.

Framed pictures of family and friends are considerable all through the house, with portraiture from their October marriage ceremony 14 years in the past commanding explicit consideration.

“Now we have recognized each other as mates for 45 years,” McKenna mentioned.

However it was Hurricane Katrina that introduced them nearer.

Barnes McKenna, who has two daughters, had evacuated to Houston days forward of time. The day earlier than landfall, she known as to verify on her previous pal.

McKenna, who has 4 sons, was caring for his 90-year-old mom in his Gentilly residence. His pal pleaded with him to go away. In the end, he and his mom made their approach to Houston because the storm was clocking in.

His residence on Bayou St. John and hers on Mirabeau Avenue flooded with 8 to 10 ft of water when the levees failed. McKenna and his mom ended up in Berkeley, California. Barnes McKenna was again in New Orleans in a well-appointed trailer in entrance of her flooded home.

As they chatted on the telephone, Barnes McKenna, assuming they had been “buddies,” talked about {that a} man had requested her to dinner. McKenna responded by flying in from Berkeley not as soon as, however twice, to take her out himself.

“You had been simply enjoying laborious to get,” he mentioned.

The marriage was a lavish affair at a pal’s property.

Each room in the home save for one has a view of the lagoon behind the home and the golf course on its reverse financial institution. The couple delight within the wildlife that dine on the buffet of eels and bass throughout the tranquil lagoon: egrets, geese, geese, turtles, pelicans and the occasional alligator.

On the garden on the fringe of the lagoon are two lifelike geese created from recycled tires. “Some time again, we had this single male goose come up and attempt to mate with them,” Barnes McKenna mentioned. “For weeks, he would dance round, puff himself up, strut. He tried every little thing. It obtained to be so unhappy. He was simply so devoted. The poor factor lastly simply had to surrender. We haven’t seen him since.

“For some time there, he simply figured they had been enjoying laborious to get, identical to I did,” she mentioned giving her husband a sly smile. “However issues turned out fairly in another way for us.”