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Palmyre, a Parisian-Inspired Paradise INSPIRED BY ONE OF LAFAYETTE’S MOST ICONIC EARLY-TWENTIETH CENTURY SOCIALITES, RIVER RANCH’S NEW COCKTAIL LOUNGE DRIPS WITH OPEN-ARMED OPULENCE By Ashley Hinson
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f River Ranch is the cultural seat of style in Southside Lafayette, then its newest cocktail lounge, Palmyre, is the curated crown jewel. Nestled among Acadiana’s most high-end shops and a chic community of townhomes, Palmyre seamlessly layers sophisticated playfulness with traditional, old-money Southern hospitality. Stepping into Palmyre on a warm, rain-misted evening is like stepping out of time. This evocation, like every detail inside the parlor-esque lounge, is intentional. Palmyre is named for a real Southern lady: local legend Palmyre Billeaud. She earned her socialite status—and then some. Billeaud was the wife of the President and General Manager of the Billeaud Sugar Factory, Martial Billeaud, a mother to many, and a friend to all. The family left an indelible mark on Acadiana, farming sugar until federal subsidies ended in 1974, then shifting into the commercial real estate market, becoming Billeaud Companies. The family sugar mill is still in Broussard to this day, as is Martial Billeaud Elementary School. The socialite arrived on the scene with all glamor and no pretense. Colleen Ottinger would know. Palmyre Billeaud was her great-great-grandmother. “She was the epitome of Southern upbringing,” said Ottinger, who owns Palmyre, as well as the Verot School Road eatery Mercy Kitchen, with her husband Stuart. “She was liked by all walks of people. She was like a modern-day Jane Scott Hodgins.” In 1915, Billeaud died unexpectedly at the age of forty-eight due to “acute indigestion that left her in a weakened condition and unable to throw off the insidious ravages of a chronic ailment,” according to her obituary. She left behind five children, and over 1,200 people attended her funeral “many being unable to get in the church, which was packed to the doors despite the great heat.” Today, many of Lafayette’s Billeaud and Beaullieu families can trace their ancestry back to her. “She was really loved,” said Ottinger. As a beauty of exalted rank from one of Acadiana’s preeminent families, Billeaud and her brood made excellent taste a family trait. Between conquering the sugar market and taking trips abroad, they collected items that, over a century later, visitors to the Palmyre lounge can admire—from gorgeously-etched glassware to a taxidermied cheetah, forever posed on the Photos by Mary Craven Photography, courtesy of Palmyre. 44
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