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Junior League of Greater Covington Designer Showhouse 2023
A SHOWCASE IN GENEROSITY BY DESIGN
The Junior League of Greater Covington is taking a different approach to the 2023 Designer Show House.
BY KIYOMI APPLETON GAINES
“In years past, the League itself would canvass designers and contractors to come into a home, and one designer per room would curate it to their liking. With this designer show house, we’re taking a unique approach because it’s someone’s personal living space. The homeowners reached out to partner with us,” said Amy Puerto, Junior League president.
A designer showcase home provides an opportunity for designers to share their creative visions and the newest trends and innovations in home interiors with industry peers and the public. Often only given a room or two to work with, the Junior League’s latest Designer Showcase Home on the Mandeville Lakefront is organized differently.
“It’s a unique show house in that there’s two units with two owners,” said Lauren Yarborough of Livio Designs. “In the past, one designer did this room, this store did that room. This is a different approach.”
The home is a spacious, multi-story building with a lobby, separate residences and a shared rooftop patio. Homeowner Frank Stewart calls the 1,200-square-foot rooftop terrace, with an outdoor kitchen and living area, the focal point of the house. On a clear night, Stewart said you can see downtown New Orleans from the terrace.
The second residence is owned by Mike and Laura Massey. “The contractor, Miles Biggs and his team, came in and did something special up there,” Laura Massey said.
Puerto and the Masseys credit Stewart and Vince Liuzza of Liuzza Realty Group with the idea of building a showcase home. Liuzza said Stewart sketched out the original floor plan on a napkin, which was given to the architect.
“Frank and Vince organized all the showcase stuff,” Mike Massey said. “They presented us with the idea of co-developing a house and then thought, this will make a cool Junior League showcase house. We agreed and jumped in. Frank steered the ship from the beginning, and he’s worked hard to make everything happen.”
Stewart and Liuzza aren’t strangers to the Junior League of Greater Covington.
“We had a home on tour for one of their Christmas Parade of Homes to help raise money,” Liuzza said. “We got to know a lot of the ladies in the Junior League, and several of our other friends had homes as designer homes over the years. So, we were familiar with the process. We knew they hadn’t had a designer show home since pre-COVID and, since it’s such a unique property on Lakeshore Drive, we reached out to them to see if they’d be interested in partnering with us, and they agreed.”
Money raised through tours of the 2023 Design House benefits charitable causes. “[Our] goal is to raise as much money as possible for the charity. We wanted to tap into our sphere of influence, our friends, our clients, who are all very generous and believe in what the Junior League does,” Liuzza said.
Yarbrough agrees and welcomes the chance to work as a region to raise funds for good causes.
“We are one big, small town: Mandeville-Madisonville-Covington. Looking for things that bring people together, bring local businesses together, that’s a big part of how I feel anytime I work on these projects,” Yarborough said. “Let’s support locals, especially when the charity is local, and it highlights our very talented craftsmen and vendors around town. There is a benefit to all of us doing this. It’s a lot of publicity for each vendor and company involved, and the fact that it does help raise money for charity is the biggest thing.”
The Junior League of Greater Covington has been a part of designer show houses in the past, with the most recent in 2016. Puerto said the offer from Luizza and Stewart was serendipitous since the organization ended its longstanding fall fundraising event, the Harvest Cup Polo Classic, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“For 25 years, we hosted the Harvest Cup Polo Classic, and it was a huge success,” Puerto said. “Then during the pandemic, we decided to refocus our programming efforts. We are an organization of women leaders who volunteer our time to do community service but also to make an impact. We’re always looking for new social causes to move the needle on.
“With Polo, it is a massive undertaking, and with our volunteer capacity of about 120 active members, we found that the time requirements exceeded what our volunteers were able to give and, sadly, it was taking away from our community impact. For many of us, the pandemic gave us time to reevaluate what our passion was, and we wanted to get back to service to our community,” Puerto said.
This year’s design process was an exercise in cooperation between designers, contractors and homeowners.
“As far as the design and personalities, it all went smoothly from the beginning,” said Holly Biggs of H Biggs Interiors. “We went through the process together because it is a show house, but it’s also someone’s custom home. We had to work with them to create what they were looking for as well, which has been a fun process. It was a nice, new project from scratch on the lakefront and a great location. It was something I was lucky to get involved in.”
Biggs worked on the Massey residence and was drawn to the opportunity to contribute to a different kind of design project. “Each designer got to do the whole unit. It’s nice to be able to do more than one room and have a cohesiveness of the whole unit. It’s a neat idea.”
Laura Massey said she and her husband worked with Biggs to build a showcase house that they could live in.
“We wanted to be in a comfortable house. I don’t want it to look like a museum. Sometimes, we had to do things differently than if we were doing it for ourselves and not a showcase house. But we were excited to do it. We felt like we all had the same kind of vision for what we wanted to do,” Laura said.
Visitors to the Massey home will appreciate the large, double-island kitchen. “It’s a classic center hall, but not in a traditional sense,” Biggs said. “It’s pretty clean lined, with simple moldings and clean cabinets. There’s a series of lights going down the hallway, Venetian plaster on the fireplace in the living room. We have some cool, textured wallpaper and more modern clean details. Overall, a simple clean design. In the kitchen, there are two nice big islands with cabinets that come up flush with the quartzite coun tertops in a textured stone backsplash, and big textured lighting fixtures that hang over the islands. I’d say the kitch en would be my favorite part.”
Yarborough took the lead on the Liuzza and Stewart home, with Lesle Veca also contributing.
“You always want it to show off the best it can. But at the end of the day, I have clients who are going to live there and call this home, so it still needs to be about them. It’s about designing and pulling it all together for the homeowner,” she said. “The homeowners themselves made this fun. Their style is very clean lines. A little modern transitional. They weren’t afraid to take some risks with me.”
Yarbrough added little special details to set the space apart. “You can see the detail in the wallpaper, the iron and glass cabinet doors, the texture in the stone that was water jet cut etched in Italy, and the backsplash of the giant range wall,” she said. “I wrapped wallpaper around the floating range wall and the kitchen backsplash is wallpaper.”
Veca adds, “I’ve known Frank and Vince for a very long time and we’ve furnished parts of all their beautiful homes. And I’ve supported the Junior League for years, so we at V Home & Interiors are thrilled to be able to showcase some of the furnishings and art and custom pieces that I designed and had built by local artists for this home.”
Yarborough also took lead on the shared spaces and, while the spaces are unique to their individual residents, there’s a complimentary aesthetic throughout.
“This process was leaning a lot on the vendors I have worked with for years and letting them be involved. Because they knew the house was on tour and knew it was going to charity, everybody worked together to make it happen and make this special and different,” Yarbrough said.
“We tried to do similar hardware and doors, so the bones of the house flow well,” Biggs said. “The units feel very different, but they also are complimentary. We tried to keep some of the features the same, the hardware or that kind of thing where they all flow together.”
According to Mike Massey, the house is a celebration of the neighborhood.
Yarborough agrees. “The house itself is beautiful. It’s a little bit more traditional on the outside and inside, both units have a little more of a transitional feel. The house and exteriors fit Mandeville and the lakefront, under the beautiful oak trees.”
All proceeds from ticket sales and special events at the Designer Showcase Home support the work of the Junior League of Greater Covington. The organization is celebrating its 45th year of community service.
“Locally, the League started in 1977. It’s had many renditions over the decades. Now, like so many organizations, it’s in a time of development, a time of change, and we’re excited to be catalysts for our community moving into the 2020s and beyond, and to see what the next 45 years have for us,” Puerto said.
Proceeds from the Designer Show House will support an upcoming Junior League signature project.
“It will go towards our projects and programs and either leadership training or development of our members,” Puerto said.. “Our community projects encompass our signature community events, as well as our Community Assistance Grants and any type of additional community initiative that we may be a part of funding. We are currently in a multi-year phase of developing our next signature cause since we developed the Children’s Museum of St. Tammany, which became an independent entity in 2018. This is going to allow us to be of service to a very specific need in St. Tammany Parish, and we’re currently investigating and researching five signature causes.”
The organization is focused on empowering girls through two signature events. Girls’ Health Day will be held at Lakeview Regional Medical Center on April 1, and Project Prom, a free self-esteem and equity building event that provides girls with dresses, shoes, and accessories for prom, will be held in the spring. The Junior League also provides grant support for other organizations and initiatives.
“By having these signature events, we raise funds to further our mission, which is to advance the women leaders of the Junior League of Greater Covington to help them become better civic leaders in St. Tammany,” Puerto said. “We also give back to our community through our signature community projects and through community grants to other nonprofits. We support those initiatives through the monies raised throughout the year. We want to be where the action is to make the biggest influence in our community.”
