Photo by Paul Christiansen
Designer/preservationist Louis Aubert at his home in New Orleans' Carrollton neighborhood.
Step across the threshold of interior designer and historic preservationist Louis Aubert’s arts and crafts bungalow home, and the mood changes instantly. The shaded porch overlooking New Orleans’s Carrollton neighborhood gives way to striped wood floors in alternating Brazilian cherry and white oak. The slender wooden strips draw you deeper into a calming, green interior. The color, Benjamin Moore Palace Green, saturates the walls, extending to the frames of the well-stocked bookcases that face each other from opposite ends of the room.
The lighting is minimal; window shutters filter sunlight to a soft glow that waxes and wanes as cloud cover shifts outside. When rays stream through the wooden slats, they illuminate the artwork on the walls—a large-format Clarence John Laughlin photograph, flanked by a misty, oil-washed live oak by Alexander John Drysdale, and contemporary landscapes by Melissa Bonin. An oversized oil on canvas by James Nathan Fisher, depicting a “Sudden Storm” rolling across Acadiana fields, hovers above an antique desk open to reveal its network of drawers and shelves stuffed with papers and assorted curiosities. Bowls of conch shells collected in Aubert’s youth and Italian Carrera marble fruit adorn tables.
Everything inside Aubert’s house is placed intentionally, selected for his enjoyment, curated for his collection, and precisely positioned to attract the eye. Known in interior design circles as “Mr. Colour,”* Aubert has devoted his career to perfecting the art of color selection and placement. Some of his best-known work can be seen at Gallier Hall (where the hallways share the same Palace Green), the Louisiana Supreme Court in New Orleans, and the Southern Hotel in Covington. But his portfolio is perhaps best manifested in the color palettes of countless homes in New Orleans’s historic districts.
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Interiors at New Orleans' historic Gallier Hall feature striking color combinations by Louis Aubert. Photos by Chris Granger for the book "Painting the Town: The Importance of Color in Historic New Orleans Architecture" via the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans.
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Interiors at New Orleans' historic Gallier Hall feature striking color combinations by Louis Aubert. Photos by Chris Granger for the book "Painting the Town: The Importance of Color in Historic New Orleans Architecture" via the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans.
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Interiors at New Orleans' historic Gallier Hall feature striking color combinations by Louis Aubert. Photos by Chris Granger for the book "Painting the Town: The Importance of Color in Historic New Orleans Architecture" via the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans.
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Interiors at New Orleans' historic Gallier Hall feature striking color combinations by Louis Aubert. Photos by Chris Granger for the book "Painting the Town: The Importance of Color in Historic New Orleans Architecture" via the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans.
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Interiors at New Orleans' historic Gallier Hall feature striking color combinations by Louis Aubert. Photos by Chris Granger for the book "Painting the Town: The Importance of Color in Historic New Orleans Architecture" via the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans.
A lifelong New Orleanian whose family roots in the city date back to the early 1700s, Aubert grew up in Algiers Point in a circa-1896 shotgun double. After college, he landed a job as an interior designer at D.H. Holmes. “It was a grand old store, a high-fashion department store,” reminisced Aubert. “They had a restaurant, the Potpourri, that was famous for its blooming salad and turtle soup.” For thirteen years, Aubert worked with store customers, honing his talent and creating the rooms of their dreams. When he left in 1987, two years before the store closed, Aubert analyzed his favorite parts of his job—choosing background colors and fabrics, color placement, putting a room together, and historic preservation—and decided to make a career out of them.
“When I first went out on my own, I advertised as Louis J. Aubert, ASID, Colorist,” he said. “It was a new term here. People would call and ask what I charged to paint a house, and I had to explain what I do for a living.” He detailed his job in two parts: color choice and color placement—each dependent on the other and meticulously planned. “There is no free thinking on the part of the painter. Painters like that. I detail the body, trim, shutters, front door, everything, on a schedule. One contractor referred to my interior schedule as the bible.”
Today, Aubert’s reputation precedes him. He hasn’t advertised in over twenty years and mostly works on referrals. While he designs a few full interiors every year, the bulk of his work now centers around the careful art of color selection. In fact, he’s credited with choosing interior or exterior color and finish materials for more than five thousand homes and buildings, including the color palette for the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans Rebuilding Together project. The program has provided critical home repairs to nearly 1,600 low-income, elderly, disabled, or veteran New Orleans homeowners.
“Colors are intensely personal, and you can do whatever you want. If you get a room wrong, it’s two gallons of paint and a Saturday afternoon.”
—Louis Aubert
When Aubert first enters a home, he begins by walking through the house, evaluating how the rooms relate. “I ask about any changes—upholstery, rugs, drapery. I can either work with what they have or, if they are open to change, we can go in a new direction. I discuss their likes and dislikes. A lot of times they’ll say they like everything, and then when I ask what they dislike, they give me a whole list,” he laughed. “Most people have an idea of what they want or say, ‘What do you think?’ I’m like a native guide to help you get from point A to point B.”
Aubert speaks of colors with an almost reverent awe, calling them a wonderful, free tool—“you buy paint, and the color comes for free”—and peppering his descriptions with words like “bold,” “garish,” “subtle,” “glossy,” or “boring.” Whites can be “warm,” “clean like plaster” (such as the popular Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace), or “stark, like walking into a refrigerator.” You can saturate a ceiling to create a cozy, closed-in feeling, or move through a house with a series of one color—going up or down the scale in twenty-five percent increments to lighten or darken a room. He played with the green palette in his house this way, coating his front room walls and then tying in his kitchen with a lighter shade of green on the ceiling.
When it comes to coloring interiors, Aubert feels there is no right or wrong way to do it. “Colors are intensely personal, and you can do whatever you want. If you get a room wrong, it’s two gallons of paint and a Saturday afternoon,” he explained before musing on the interior design elements. “Buy things that appeal to you, not what’s popular. Listen to your inner voice, and your things will work together.”
Exteriors are a different story. With a much larger area to cover, the paint job can become expensive, so it’s best to get it right the first time. “Start with driving around and see what appeals to you,” said Aubert. “Pinterest is great. Put photos on a board without thinking about it, then go back and look at the board, and you’ll see a pattern repeating itself.”
He recommends painting two-coat sample colors directly onto the house in a two-foot-square area, covering sections both in the sun and the shadows. “Then sit back and live with it for a while,” he said. “When you’re painting an exterior, you’re putting your fingerprint on the house. You want your house to be distinctive, noticed, but not like a circus wagon. Neighbors are like cousins in a family, and some can be garish.”
And if all fails? “Go with a pale house with a strong front door and shutters,” said Aubert. Or better yet, rely on an expert.
“Mr. Colour” is featured in popular New Orleans interior and historic architecture books, including Painting the Town and Bohemian Soul. He can be reached at 504-861-0968 or mrcolour@aol.com.
* Editor’s note about “Mr. Colour:” Asked about his use of the anglicized spelling “colour,” Aubert explained that many years ago, when establishing an email account for his business, he discovered that the address mrcolor@aol.com was unavailable, and that his next best option would be mrcolor7@aol.com. “I immediately asked for mrcolour@aol.com,” he explained. The email, and the nickname, have endured ever since.
