August 2011. Mystical Priestess and Urban Crusader: Where two worlds have met and set up housekeeping, beautifully.

“There is nothing that isn’t vodou. Vodou encompasses the principle and rhythm of life itself. Spirit is a present reality. It flows in and around every act and expression of the universe. It fills all things; informs all life; is the spark of the Divine within all people. Anyone can approach Spirit, whoever, however, and wherever they are. You start with what you know, where you came from, and then it grows.”  —from Vodou Visions: An Encounter with Divine Mystery, by Sallie Ann Glassman

• 
•  

Click the small image at left to open a photo gallery. Photos by Kim Ashford.

It was a dark and stormy night...well, actually it was a dark and stormy mid-morning, as we wended our way down the narrow streets of New Orleans’ Bywater in search of an orange-purple-and-magenta house with Tarot card front doors. The house, I was told, is the home of Pres Kabacoff and Sallie Ann Glassman—Pres, a well-known second-generation developer and a principal at HRI Properties, which spearheads historical restoration and new mixed-use construction projects in Greater New Orleans and beyond; and Sallie Ann, an artist, Vodou priestess, author, seer, shopkeeper, and founder of La Source Ancienne Ounfo, where she presides over weekly Vodou ceremonies.

In such dismal summer rain, I was not prepared for the sight of this glowing, eclectic mixture of Bauhaus, Moroccan, and Louisiana Creole influences, so full of personality and charm. A life-sized sculpture of Papa Legba (a Vodoun Lwa or deity who guards the crossroads between the physical and spirit worlds) gazed down upon us from his perch atop a second-story terrace wall.

The tall double doors at the entrance are inlaid with forty-eight painted tiles—images from a Vodou Tarot deck that Sallie herself designed—portending that other mystical treasures are to be found inside. The tall, handsome, casually-dressed man who greeted us and introduced himself as Pres Kabacoff beckoned us into a dim interior hall with its two altars, one white and one red, and both overloaded with candles, bottles, representations of Vodouan Lwas, Santeria, Catholic saints, and various meaningful treasures and trinkets.

Like many homes in Mexico and northern Africa, this house is built around a central courtyard, with a lap pool, water garden, and shady outdoor living and dining areas. Here it appeared that someone had magically invoked the spirit of the late Luis Barragan, Mexico’s most important architect of the twentieth century; along with that of the revered and quintessential Louisiana architect and tastemaker, A. Hays Town—with Moorish elements of Northern Africa and Spain thrown into the mix. In addition to himself and his ladylove, that someone, we were told by our host, was a whole group of people associated with his company: architects Michael Albrecht and Connie Cramer, interior designer and project manager Marty Leatherberry, and a gaggle of others. A project fourteen months in the making, the Kabacoff-Glassman abode began as a vacant lot next to an abandoned textile factory (which Kabacoff and his group have converted to thirty-five chic live-in artists’ studios).

Add Comment