[Image: corner view of house showing landscaping]Susan Neely is both an artist and an architect. It is both that helped her heal from the trauma of enduring Hurricane Katrina and the shock of what happened to her city during the aftermath.
Having grown up in Covington, Neely moved to New Orleans in 2002. She received her architect’s license in January 2003 and went out on her own in September of that year. At the time of Katrina, Neely was living in the house she owned in uptown New Orleans but was spending most of her time working on a project for a non-profit in Covington. She also was preparing work for an art show.
When she was growing up, Neely had always heard the constant refrain “don’t stay in New Orleans during a hurricane – it will flood.” Despite this, she had not planned to evacuate for Katrina. But watching the development and approach of the storm and receiving e-mails of alarm from her parents and family changed her mind.
Neely left the city Saturday night. She went to stay with a friend in a wooded area of Covington, not knowing that the storm would hit this locale so severely. Throughout the duration of the hurricane, the wind roared, howled and raged through the area. Trees came crashing down all around them. The trees fell, one after the other after another, with a tremendous and thundering impact; some just feet from where she was. Neely sat in terror for hours until the storm moved through. More than 120 trees fell, trapping Neely and her friend in place for three days. They slowly worked through the trees with a chainsaw until they had cleared a way out.
“I was shellshocked from the trees falling,” remembers Neely. “It was really terrifying.”
Miraculously, the friends and their cars were fine. Desperate to leave the site of those horrific hours, Neely and her friend headed for North Carolina. As the drive progressed, they passed empty gas stations all along the way. “We had to drive almost to Alabama before we could find gas,” Neely reports.
After a week in North Carolina, a still shellshocked Neely heard that residents were not being permitted to return to New Orleans. She wanted to be home. Although she knew that it had to be done, the news footage of other people -- people from out of state -- going into her city and into people’s homes when she herself could not go was hard to watch.
Having faced the fact that she would not be home soon, Neely rented a car and drove to Washington, D.C., to stay with her brother. Emotional shock and distress went with her. As with many residents who experienced Hurricane Katrina, this shock would stay with her for almost a year. In Washington, the stress began to take a physical toll on her. She wasn’t well and soon drove to New York to be with more family.
Neely had only evacuated with a change of clothes, some art supplies and her paintings to work on for the upcoming show she was to be in. With no clothes, no anything, Neely had to buy a replacement wardrobe and everyday necessities. She found people concerned and helpful during this time.
“People could not have been nicer,” she recalls.
For three weeks after Hurricane Katrina it was difficult for Neely to get news from New Orleans. A friend who had stayed in the city sent text messages, giving updates when he could. She learned that her house had sustained some wind damage and someone had broken in, but nothing was taken. Having left 40-50 pounds of fish in the freezer at her home in New Orleans when she evacuated, Neely was understandably wary of what she might come home to. Luckily, Neely had the good fortune of having a friend clean out her refrigerator for her shortly after the storm.
After spending some time with family, Neely drove straight through to Louisiana. She spent one more week on the Northshore before getting back to New Orleans the first week in October.
“There was no electricity, no water,” says Neely. With a sense of irony, she adds, “It felt like a great urban campout. We ate lots of hot dogs, canned food, stuff you could cook on the grill.”
Once home, still in the emotional upheaval of it all, Neely drove around the city for a month or two, “just trying to make sense of it.” Though not a photographer, she shot dozens of rolls of film, not even knowing why; just knowing she had to.
She spent time just walking around supermarkets – the only things open at the time – looking at the food. With no restaurants open, she learned to cook.
Eventually, Neely began working on construction, repair and rebuilding projects with a friend who is a contractor. She slowly began to feel better. Neely felt purposeful. She felt she was “contributing to helping fix the problems.” The process of healing had begun.
Neely also picked up her art (her true love) again and started to participate in shows. Art gave her “some place else to go in (her) head” when the suffering and destruction all around overwhelmed her.
In June 2006, Neely moved to the French Quarter. She kept her house Uptown, but the neighborhood no longer felt safe. The Quarter, though, was patrolled regularly, and there she felt more secure. By February of the next year, Neely knew she wanted a fresh start.
Neely decided she wanted to build an entirely new place to live from the ground up. Without much money, Neely drove around some of the hardest-hit areas of the city looking for something affordable and something where the act of her building could do some good. But she limited her search to empty lots only; no houses. Neely did not like the idea of buying a house for less than it previously had been worth and tearing it down to build new. She felt that to do this, she would be profiting from another’s misfortune -- something she refused to do.
Neely searched until she found a vacant lot on a corner in Gentilly. She didn’t really know the neighborhood, but she happened to know the neighbor across the street from the lot. The neighborhood “felt like I could live here,” says Neely. She continued, “I wouldn’t be dropping in not knowing anyone at all.”
Neely bought the lot and began the design process for her new home. Having focused on sustainable architecture in school, Neely knew that when she built her own home, that is the way she would build it.
In the back of the lot stood a shed from which Neely was able to determine the[Image: view of deck] waterline on the property. It was about seven feet up the structure, but she knew if that was the level at which the water settled, then the actual flooding was probably higher. So Neely built her home nine feet above grade and left the underneath open for air flow and protection from any future flooding that might occur.
Neely’s goal in building her home was to be as "off the grid" as was possible to be in the city. She did consider getting solar panels but chose not to. Neely reasoned that if her electricity bills came in at only $30 per month or less because of passive heating and cooling techniques, it made more sense for her not to have to bear the upfront costs of the solar panels.
For an energy-efficient house, Neely began by orienting the structure so the prevailing breezes would flow straight through. The north and south sides are open, while the east and west are void of windows or doors. Daylight fills the space, eliminating the need for electric light until sundown. Low emissivity, or "Low E" glass, was used on the openings on the south side. Trellises are installed across the width and height of the east and west facades where vines planted below will soon grow and cover. This provides additional insulation.
Neely hired engineers to design her home to exceed code requirements, to make it stronger than it needed to be, for wind bracing and for supporting the sod roof she had planned.
“I think I may have the only sod roof in New Orleans,” laughs Neely. “I think the engineers were amused more than anything by my having a sod roof.”
Despite having this feature, unusual in New Orleans, she had no difficulty with the city officials. “They didn’t question any of it,” she says.
Neely chose not to install HVAC, relying instead on her passive methods to heat and cool the house.
“It did get a little hot in July and August,” she admits.
She thinks that by next summer, with the sod roof completed and the vines covering the trellises, there will be a noticeable difference.
Landscaping was important to Neely, and she wanted it to play a prominent role in the project. Besides the sod roof and the trellised vines, her garden is meant to be edible. Her trees yield nuts, berries and other fruit. She has a sugarcane fence in the rear and no hardscape structure for the rest of the fencing other than posts and supporting wire for vines to cover.
“Everything on the house and property is there to do something,” states Neely. “It’s all functional.”
Neely’s home will certainly be green, both in the sustainability sense of the word and in reference to nature.
Not wanting to feel closed off from the street but desiring some privacy, Neely built large porches and decks that are semi-screened with louvers upon which vines will eventually grow. And there is more space outdoors indoors. Neely wanted to keep the footprint of the enclosed space as small as possible. The interior of the house is 900 square feet. The exterior spaces are 800 square feet plus the 450 square feet on the roof, which is also usable space.
With the doors open and the easy flow of going inside and out that Neely has created, the lines delineating the exterior and interior become blurred. It is clear the porches and decks are just as important living space as the interior rooms; perhaps even more so. In effect, Neely has created 2,150 square feet of living area.
Neely’s house is an unusual design for the city, and there is no doubt it attracts notice. “This inters[Image: view of back of house]ection has received a lot of attention,” says Neely. Not only was her house unique, but her neighbor across the street was constructing his own house in a modern style at the same time. Residents are not used to seeing two contemporary houses in one block.
“People seemed really curious,” she reports. “They asked a lot of questions. ‘Is it a house?’ ‘Is it green?’ ‘Is it a Brad Pitt house?’"
Everything was carefully designed to have a purpose and still have aesthetic appeal. She also tried to respect the neighborhood and the city.
“I wanted to reference the historical architecture,” Neely says. “Like with the trellises. And the joint where the pier meets the house. The bell shapes above the piers create the illusion of buttresses.”
The allamanda vines that will fill in and act as fencing on three sides are also a nod to old New Orleans.
Her intent was not to have the house appear jarring within its context, but rather to be soft and gracious. The landscaping, once grown in, will soften the structure, giving Neely the effect she desires.
“This is the first building I’ve built from the ground up, and I was the contractor,” Neely says with pride. “Building this has made me feel better than anything else has.”
Neely enjoys her new life in the Gentilly neighborhood, although she finds it much different than living Uptown.
“I feel really good about this neighborhood," she says. "I’m optimistic that people will be coming back.”
Even when she saw the flooding in New Orleans when she was still in New York, Neely never considered moving away.
“All I wanted was to come back," she says. “Most people who live here have a kind of love/hate relationship with the city. But it is home.”