We'll Always Be Royals

Brandon Branch and Jim Johnston raise the bar on opulent accommodations in St. Francisville, again

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The curated excess signature to the modern maximalist style has experienced a resurgence of popularity in recent years. Those who have visited one of designer Brandon Branch’s properties in St. Francisville—The St. Francisville Inn, and now the Royal on Royal—might assume Branch himself is responsible for the revival.

“I love like, the jewelry of the room. I love all the eye candy, I love the little treasures,” Branch explained across a table of unusually shaped glass vases with tall, narrow necks, each bearing a single long-stemmed lily, nestled into a colorful assortment of books, antique plates, and hunks of amethyst and coral. “I mean, I want you to sit in my room and just look for amazing little pieces and things, like a treasure hunt.”

When Branch and his husband and business partner Jim Johnston first reopened The St. Francisville Inn following massive renovations in 2019, the pair introduced a brand of high-end hospitality draped in artful luxury to St. Francisville. Four years into the Inn and its accompanying restaurant and craft cocktail bar, The Saint’s, massively successful tenure, the opening of The Royal on Royal in October 2023 raised the bar—or the heated towel rack, to be more precise—on luxurious accommodations in the small town yet again.

“I love like, the jewelry of the room. I love all the eye candy, I love the little treasures. I mean, I want you to sit in my room and just look for amazing little pieces and things, like a treasure hunt.” —Brandon Branch

“Jim and I have traveled the whole world and stayed at some of the nicest hotels in the world. So I wanted to bring that back here,” Branch explained. Full butler service provided by Keri Overland (who will do everything from unpack your bags to drive you to dinner) and bathrooms floored with heated tiles, towel warmers, and even heated toilet seats are only the beginning of the small luxurious touches that elevate The Royal experience. “I hate a cold towel,” Branch said. “They're just little luxuries, but they mean a world of difference. Like a heated toilet seat makes all the difference in the world in January.”

Branch bridges these “practical” luxurious touches seamlessly with the aesthetic beauty of the spaces, each more eclectic, colorful, and captivating than the last. “I’m like a unicorn, because I can walk in a room and I can see it fully done. And then I have to go backwards to get there,” Branch explained. “Like, I walked in the front door for the first time and I saw this room as you see it today.”

His starting point from there is often a particular color, for which he calls on Ellen Kennon, local color expert and creator of Ellen Kennon Full Spectrum Paints, who was a fast friend and collaborator of Branch and Johnston’s from their first arrival in St. Francisville. For the main sitting room, for example, Branch knew he wanted a cheerful yellow paint that matched the tones in the adjacent dining room’s botanical mural wallpaper he so loved. “Now it's bright. I wanted it to be happy,” Branch said. “And who can’t be happy in a yellow room?” Kennon also created custom colors, including one called “Royal Green” for the kitchen cabinets and butler pantry, tailored to Branch’s vision.

Beneath the custom paint colors and fine wallpapers, thoughtful details abound. Bay St. Louis artist Kevin Wiggs, who also painted the mural in the dining room of the St. Francisville Inn, spent eight days painting a bathroom mural inspired by India and South Asia. Contemporary accents pop from tables and walls, and stately antiques have their beauty accentuated by vibrant backdrops.

“I love to mix modern and traditional. I love everything to have a story and a history, and I can give you the history of everything in this room that I've selected from all over the world,” said Branch. Paintings from Santa Fe and Alaska, hand-crafted wooden boxes from Wales, and a secretary desk that Johnston purchased from Sotheby’s in New York as a birthday gift for Branch are just a few that jumped out in our immediate vicinity.

Most of the furniture, Branch said, was sourced at Fireside Antiques in Baton Rouge and Provence Antiques in Port Allen, which provided all of the chandeliers and the sitting room’s green velvet sofa. “You can furnish anything in the world from those two places,” Branch insisted.

“I love to mix modern and traditional. I love everything to have a story and a history, and I can give you the history of everything in this room that I've selected from all over the world." —Brandon Branch

Before Branch had ever set foot in St. Francisville, he found himself lying in bed at his home in Savannah, scrolling through Zillow listings. The former cast member of Bravo’s Southern Charm Savannah and indulgent bon vivant had heard St. Francisville was filled with beautiful historic homes, which is exactly what he and Johnston were in the market for. He had no idea, at the time, that the place he was eyeing as a potential new home was only around an hour and forty-five minutes’ drive from his hometown of Tylertown, Mississippi. ”I had no clue it was so close to where I grew up.”

During their first several years in St. Francisville, Johnston and Branch lived in a small but (of course) finely decorated apartment on the second floor of The St. Francisville Inn. From the beginning, they had their eyes on the property on Royal Street in the Historic District, which at the time housed The Barrow House Bed & Breakfast. “We always loved this property,” Branch explained. “And we always wanted to buy it.”

The owner and innkeeper at the time, Shirley Dittloff, had been unwilling to part with the beloved historic Camilla Leake Barrow House, which consists of two structures built in 1780 and 1790, respectively, that were combined into one in 1800. When Branch and Johnston were ready to convert their previous living space at the Inn into a spa (which opens this month) and begin work on another venture, they had their realtor inquire about the Barrow House with Dittloff again. This time, she agreed to meet with the two for an interview, which Branch said lasted two hours. “She wanted to make sure we were going to keep the interior of the house, that we were going to save the house, that we weren’t going to destroy the house,” Branch said. “I was like, ‘I am not going to destroy this house. I want this house because I love this home.’”

Dittloff was convinced, and agreed to sell to the couple. After eight months of extensive renovations, including installing all new electrical, plumbing, and more—plus all of the more aesthetic design work of painting, wallpapering, and outfitting each space with the perfect fixtures, draperies, furniture, artwork, and trinkets—the Royal welcomed its first guests the last week of October. The initial reviews have been exclusively raves, and the new proprietors are thrilled with it, too.

The couple now occupies the upstairs suite of their new property, which allows them more space and privacy, as their new B&B contains a manageable three suites. With a maximum of six guests, The Royal, for Branch, feels almost like hosting houseguests, even with the daily homemade hot breakfasts, butler service, and martini happy hours. “It’s very intimate, very personalized. And we can rent it as much or as little as we want. We love to travel, so we just block off times we won’t be here.”

One of Branch’s favorite aspects of the property is its winding gardens, which, once trimmed back, revealed such gems as two-hundred-year-old camellia bushes, and a cold frame greenhouse from the 1800s. Between tending the gardens, sipping martinis on the porch, or playing homemaker as he cooks hors d'oeuvres and breakfasts for guests, Branch is entirely in his element. “Every day, it’s whatever I'm inspired to do,” Branch said, from his antique green velvet sofa. “I'm having fun with it.” 

Find The Royal on Royal on Instagram @the_royal_on_royal, or book at stfrancisvilleinn.com.

Editor's Note/Disclaimer: Ellen Kennon, who created paint colors used in the Royal, is the writer’s mother.