Cheryl Gerber
Amy van Calsem Wendel is from the fourth generation of her family to run Hové Parfumeur.
Amy van Calsem Wendel was wearing Rue Royale. “I have several favorites,” she said in a recent interview at her third-floor apartment above the Hové Parfumeur shop on Chartres Street in the French Quarter.
“I’m wearing the original Rue Royale formula. I’ve kept a stash of it. It was originally perfume, but I diluted it with alcohol to make eau de toilette.
“I told my husband when I die to make sure I’m wearing Tea Olive. I also like Flame. It’s heavy, oriental, a good scent for winter.”
Those are just a few of the fifty-three scents invented and named by Lilian Hovey-King, who kept her family going during the Depression by mixing and selling perfumes, at first from home and later from a shop in the French Quarter.
Cheryl Gerber
Hové fragrances come in perfumes, colognes, solid perfumes, lotions, bubble baths, shower gels, body oils, and massage oils. The top two sellers are Tea Olive, which smells like the local favorite sweet olive (Osmanthus fragrans) bloom, and Vetivert, whose woodsy scent is imparted by the dried roots of vetiver grass. Bundles of the root have long been used to prevent moisture and insects from damaging fabrics stored in Louisiana’s humid climate.
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Wendel is from the fourth generation of her family to run the business, which she said is the oldest continuously operated perfume shop in New Orleans. Each woman has brought her own touch to it.
Lilian Moon Hovey-King (1883-1960) traveled all over the world with her husband, navy commander Alvin Hovey-King. Whenever she could, she studied and collected locally made perfumes.
After the couple settled in New Orleans, Lilian was licensed to open her first shop at 529 Royal Street in 1931. Her husband had “lost all their money in the stock market,” according to Wendel, who alternately refers to her as “Lilian” and “Mrs. Hovey-King.”
Lilian used the name Hovey for her business, but deleted the Y and added an accent over the E “to give it that European flair,” said Wendel.
By all accounts, Lilian was a force of nature. In addition to formulating and selling perfumes, she was a painter and ceramic artist. She was also an ardent preservationist when the French Quarter was considered nothing more than a Bohemian neighborhood with cheap rents.
“I told my husband when I die to make sure I’m wearing Tea Olive. I also like Flame. It’s heavy, oriental, a good scent for winter.”
“When she created a fragrance, she thought of the kind of person who would wear it,” said Wendel, who now mixes the fragrances in a tiny laboratory on the second floor of the building. “Were they woodsy or floral? Mantrap is spicy. Flame is for redheads.
“She made them in stages,” said Wendel, who studied scrapbooks and photos to piece together a history of the business. “Carnaval was the very first fragrance. Vetivert, Tea Olive, Magnolia, Belle Chasse—these were the earliest ones. Then she did a big group in the ‘forties—Mantrap, Flame, A Kiss in the Dark.
Cheryl Gerber
“El Capitan was invented because she went to Yosemite [National Park] and fell in love with El Capitan Mountain.” Hové’s website describes the fragrance as “a delightful blending of citrus notes [that] creates a fresh and clean fragrance for those who love the outdoors.”
Wendel said that Lilian was “a smart, savvy woman” who embraced the then-new practice of mail ordering. “She sent out these cute little postcards when Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day was coming up, reminding her customers to come to the shop. Our products make great teacher’s gifts, wedding favors, housewarming gifts—and of course Christmas gifts.”
Another practice Lilian instigated was keeping a detailed file on every customer. “Our customers are all given a number that begins with the year they started buying,” said Wendel. “Today I waited on someone whose number started with 73. The file includes name and address, what they purchased, what they paid, the name of the perfume, and the size of the bottle. She was very organized.”
But the most important skill was mixing the products, and in that Lilian had a secret weapon—her assistant Susie Smith. An African American woman who originally worked for Lilian as a housekeeper, Smith learned to mix the perfumes, lotions, soaps, and other products.
“Susie worked with Mrs. Hovey-King from the beginning,” said Wendel, who herself learned from Smith. “She started when she was sixteen. Lilian took Susie under her wing. She did all the mixing after Mrs. Hovey-King passed away and was still doing it until she retired in 1994.”
Lilian died in late 1960 and is buried alongside her husband at Arlington National Cemetery. Her daughter and only child, Rita Hovey-King Yokum (1911-75), took over the business with her husband Jules de Fazende Yokum.
Their only daughter Julie (1943-89) grew up spending weekends at her grandmother’s shop. After graduating from Loyola with a degree in journalism, Julie left New Orleans. She had no interest in the perfume business, according to Wendel, who pronounces her aunt’s name “Zhoo-LEE,” in the French fashion.
“Julie worked in New York and Saigon and traveled a lot. But Rita lost the alcohol license. [Denatured alcohol is used in making perfume.] She called Julie and said, ‘I need help.’ In 1972, Julie had to come and bail her out. The business was a mess. By the time Julie finished, she had fallen in love with everything about the business. She took it over and bought it out in 1974. All ownership transferred to her.”
When Julie died at forty-six of lung cancer, her husband Willem van Calsem took over the business. “He was a photographer who had nothing to do with Hové until Julie was diagnosed,” said Wendel, whose father is Willem’s younger brother. “He kept it going.”
Willem later married Barbara Ann Downs and brought her into the business. “They did a great job,” said Wendel. Barbara Ann added another unique touch.
“She collects old linens and quilts dating back to the plantation era,” said Wendel, noting that her aunt added linens to the products at Hové. A bar of soap comes with an embroidered white linen hand towel, and embroidered linen pillowcases have a bundle of vetivert root wrapped in tissue paper folded into them. “They’re getting two beautiful pillowcases and a piece of history,” said Wendel.
Wendel joined the family business when she was just out of college. (She has a degree in marketing from the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.)
“It was my first big job,” she said. “I came to spend the night with my aunt and uncle because I had a job interview. They sat me down and said, ‘Why don’t you come to work for us?’ I had always loved Hové, and when I really got involved, I just fell more in love with it.”
Wendel worked her way up, starting as a salesperson. She also converted customer information from “ten thousand plus” index cards to the computer. “It took me a year and a half,” she said. “But it was so much fun.”
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Amy stayed for three years. When she met her future husband Bill Wendel in 1996, she moved away. Seven years and three children later, when Willem and Barbara Ann were ready to retire to Taos, New Mexico, Amy agreed to return.
Just as each woman before her has brought her own touch to the business, Wendel has added clothing, including such lines as Kori America and Mittoshop.
“After fragrance, my second love is fashion. My teenage daughter helped me select the clothes. I wanted to bring in the twenty-year-old group to the shop. We’ve got to figure out how we’re going to get the younger generation in here. I thought if we get ‘em in the door for the clothes we could turn them on to the perfume. The clothes are for all ages. I’m forty-eight and I would wear everything I sell.”
In addition to her eye for fashion, daughter Morgan, sixteen, “has been working in the store practically since she was born,” said Wendel. “She turned me on to bath salts, sage, smudging. We can add our existing scents to new products that the younger generation likes.”
Cheryl Gerber
Hové has had four different French Quarter locations, starting at 529 Royal in 1931, moving to 723 Toulouse in 1938, to 824 Royal in 1982, and to its present address, 434 Chartres, in 2011. Despite accommodating changing tastes, Wendel works to keep the shop looking like it belongs in the 1809 building.
“Hové has a vintage feel that we try to keep,” she said. “I want every customer to feel like you’re stepping back in time.”
Ruth Laney’s current favorite is Tea Olive, but she is ready to try Vetivert. She can be reached at ruthlaney@cox.net.
