Some of oldest structures in parish will be incorporated into new restaurant development
For decades two of the oldest buildings in St. Tammany Parish sat mostly forgotten, obscured by thick brush just yards from the countless motorists speeding past them each day on busy U.S. 190 in Covington.
But in a curious intersection of old and new, the construction of a sprawling new restaurant on the banks of the Bogue Falaya River has brought the old buildings into plain view, allowing them to be rediscovered by those who had only vaguely recalled their existence -- and discovered by those who had no inkling of their existence.
The buildings -- one, the first St. Tammany Parish courthouse, dating to 1818; the other, a smaller house perhaps even a few years older -- are among the oldest in the parish, historians say, after the Francois Cousin House on Bayou Liberty near Slidell (circa 1787-1789).
"Isn't it wonderful? Not many people even knew what was back there," said Robin Perkins, a historian and archivist for the St. Tammany Parish clerk of court's office.
Tim Hood, a partner in Eighteen18 LLC, which is building a 13,000-square-foot Chimes restaurant at the site, said he and his partners have a short-term plan to spruce the buildings up and make necessary repairs. The as-yet-undefined long-term plan is to somehow incorporate the buildings into the business plan, he said.
"They're structurally sound,'' Hood said. "Right now we're just working to preserve them.
"They've been so effectively screened from the road, a lot of people had no idea they were here -- even some people who say they've lived here a long time,'' Hood said.
Poring over yellowed conveyance records, the near-two-century-old ink browned from the years, Perkins was able to trace the old courthouse back to its creation.
An act of the Louisiana Legislature in 1817 called for the parish to decide on a permanent parish seat. St. Tammany conveyance records show that parish Judge James Tate signed off on an agreement on July 10, 1818, holding a group of men led by Robert Layton "formally bound to the Parish judge and police jury" to build a parish courthouse and jail in the town of Claiborne, across the Bogue Falaya from Covington.
"Both said buildings are to be finished on or before the first Monday in March 1819, the large building for use of a Courthouse and public offices; and the other for the use of jail for the Parish of St. Tammany," the records say.
Perkins said records describe a structure in Enon, in what is now Washington Parish, where some parish business was conducted before 1818. She said the area was known as Washington Fields, and that "we know some soldiers were mustered there for the War of 1812." A marker on Louisiana 25 notes the location of Washington Fields, she said.
That the first parish courthouse was built in Claiborne came as the result of some deal-making, historians say.
"Robert Layton told them he'd build a courthouse if they made Claiborne the parish seat," said retired Judge Steve Ellis, an expert who wrote a history of the parish, "St. Tammany Parish L'autre Cote Du Lac." "So he did and they did."
The courthouse is a white, columned, two-story structure with verandas on the first and second stories. It is made of brick, which is covered with plaster on the inside.
Perkins said parish court minutes note that court opened in the structure on April 12, 1819. "They built it fast," she said.
The smaller building is a wood structure with a large porch. Hood called it a cottage and said he has heard it could be a few years older than the courthouse building.
"The big question: Is the other building the jail?" Perkins asked.
Not likely, said Ellis, who lived in the smaller building for a couple of years when he moved to the area from New Orleans in 1951 and remembers it being known as a "law library."
But while it got the parish courthouse, the town of Claiborne never boomed and in 1838 the parish seat moved across the Bogue Falaya to Covington, where it remains today. The old courthouse later became the Claiborne Cottage, a resort whose wide galleries, pure water and purported absence of mosquitoes drew the well-heeled to the area, according to advertisements and media accounts of the time.
In the 1950s, long after its use as a courthouse and hotel, it became the home of the Lobdell family, which bought it and the surrounding land for $10,000 and named it Robinwood.
Eighteen18 -- so named because that's the year the courthouse was built -- bought the site from Byrne and Robin Lobdell for $2.3 million in October 2008, according to parish real estate records.
Hood is reluctant to talk money, declining to disclose the cost of the restaurant project other than to say, "It's a big building and big commitment in a relatively small market." It will be the third Chimes restaurant, joining the two in Baton Rouge.
Hood said the restaurant is scheduled to open in early April. He said the construction process, which included permits from the Army Corps of Engineers and state Department of Natural Resources, as well as the use of reclaimed wood beams from an old car dealership in New Orleans and bricks from a South Carolina cotton mill, has been demanding.
And while the plans for the old courthouse and smaller building are unformed, Hood said he and his partners know something special could come from them.
"We like old stuff," he said. "I think we can find a way to make this work for us."
Bob Warren can be reached at bwarren@timespicayune.com or 985.898.4832.