Taking Another Man’s Trash and Turning It Into Their New-Old NOLA Home

At first glance, Emilie Taylor and Seth Welty’s New Orleans residence appears to clash with the city’s storied aesthetic.

After outgrowing their Seventh Ward home, the Weltys found an overlooked property near the Mississippi River levee in the city’s Black Pearl neighborhood. "When we saw the house on the lot, it was pretty clear that it was beyond fixing," says Seth. But the plot was unusually large and also near the river and Tulane University, where Emilie serves as the director of the architecture program.

They tore down the existing house and designed a new 2,800-square-foot home composed of two horizontal boxes stacked on the front of the lot. The larger one, capped by an angled roof, is clad in workaday, metal siding. It sits on top of the smaller box, covered in salvaged terra-cotta roof tiles the couple found on Facebook Marketplace and DIYed into place. In other words, it couldn’t look more different from its traditional shotgun house neighbors.

"We have a lot of love and respect for the historic fabric of this city," says Emilie. "But if you were to just replicate what was already there, it’s not as honest or rich as if you built something of your own time and moment."

That said, the home is an amalgamation of salvaged materials and inexpensive, adaptable finishes, an echo of the city’s collective spirit of forming solutions from whatever’s readily available.