Baronne Street Residence Featured on NOLA.com - NANO
700 Baronne Street was originally featured on NOLA.com on September 29th, 2022. Article by Kara Nelson; photos by Michael Mantese.
As a young couple in Washington, D.C., Brad and Ashley Becnel fell in love with living downtown. They relished having so much right at their fingertips — restaurants, shops, entertainment. Looking for a similar experience when they moved to New Orleans, they quickly homed in on the Central Business District, where they purchased a three-story property in 2014.
The renovation was not a simple one, but both are accomplished professionals who know how to get things done. Ashley Becnel is the global business development director at GOED, a trade association for the omega-3 industry. Trained as an attorney, Brad Becnel worked for the Obama administration for six years before returning to Louisiana to run a family real estate business.
After searching for a local architecture firm that shared their modern aesthetic, the couple hired Terri Dreyer and her team at NANO Architecture | Interiors. And they remained very much involved in the process throughout.
“We are not hands-off type people. We had several design meetings, discussed wish lists and built vision boards before NANO shared their plan with us,” Ashley Becnel explained. “From there, we walked through the plans, made tweaks, shared ideas and picked selections from furniture and tile to paint and plants. There was a lot of communication between Terri, the team and us. It really became a friendship and intimate collaboration.”
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“Connecting the first-floor courtyard to the more expansive second-floor backyard was a challenge,” said Dreyer. “To utilize the small first-floor space as efficiently as possible, we figured out a way to cantilever a beautiful, modern staircase that’s both structurally strategic — taking up minimal space — and quite impactful in design.”
