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 dwelling. One or the opposite of them will usually discover one thing they love on a visit, and so they work out later the place the piece will go. The result’s an intensely private dwelling that displays the heat, magnificence and whimsy of its inhabitants.

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

“Warren continues to be ribbing me in regards to the ceiling fan we needed to eliminate to accommodate the chandelier, however I merely needed to have it. I find it irresistible.”

For McKenna, 79, a retired ophthalmologist, it was a curvaceous Murano glass chandelier and a hand-knotted crimson silk rug they discovered in 2017 whereas purchasing in San Francisco’s Chinatown. That very same day, they each additionally fell for a surprising 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 introduced by the Younger Males Illinois Membership.

“I crave clear, straight traces, and I can’t stand litter,” Barnes McKenna stated. “That kitchen made me loopy.”

“The kitchen was outdated, and it was functionally out of date for them,” stated New Orleans designer Penny Francis, who helped with the replace. “Collaborating with contractor Frank Morse, we gutted the area, then backed within the home equipment Gail needed. Then we designed the area 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 end result serves the culinary-minded couple’s calls for for performance and magnificence. The cooktop sits on a 10-foot central island topped in pale quartzite.  

Shaw customized a deep modern 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 movement. A brushed stainless mannequin is constructed into the cabinetry and glides out for service.

“I like all the pieces as a substitute,” Barnes McKenna stated.

Simply outdoors of the kitchen hangs her “most prized possession,” a framed award introduced to her by Younger Audiences of Louisiana for her years of volunteer service to the group that gives arts training and integration applications for kids. The award is a bit of artwork crafted by youngsters 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 toilet, which was painted with Benjamin Moore’s Silver Satin. The luminous area encompasses a floating glass bathe, a soaking tub by H2O Studio, and his-and-hers self-importance areas topped with pale grey granite with an emerald vein.

A door leads from the bathtub to a glamorous 225-square-foot closet with area 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 & Ladies of Style and Younger Audiences of Louisiana. To create the area, Francis used an present closet and enclosed a hallway that when linked the master suite 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 lounge, two ceiling followers had been sacrificed to accommodate the Murano glass chandelier. The coveted crimson silk rug anchors the area. “I don’t know what the sample is or from the place the rug even originated,” McKenna stated. “I simply appreciated it once I noticed it.”

A placing pair of sculptural, flared-arm sofas by Caracole Compositions are upholstered in a creamy boucle cloth with a tender shimmer. The sofas curve to outline the area underneath 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 could be seen from the room as a substitute of honor on the wall above the touchdown of the cherry staircase.

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

“Now we have identified each other as buddies for 45 years,” McKenna stated.

But it surely 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 referred to as to verify on her outdated buddy.

McKenna, who has 4 sons, was caring for his 90-year-old mom in his Gentilly dwelling. His buddy pleaded with him to go away. Finally, he and his mom made their strategy to Houston because the storm was clocking in.

His dwelling 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 cellphone, 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 exhausting to get,” he stated.

The marriage was a lavish affair at a buddy’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 inside 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 made out of recycled tires. “Some time again, we had this single male goose come up and attempt to mate with them,” Barnes McKenna stated. “For weeks, he would dance round, puff himself up, strut. He tried all the pieces. It acquired 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 exhausting to get, similar to I did,” she stated giving her husband a sly smile. “However issues turned out fairly otherwise for us.”