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FRENCH INTERNATIONAL CENTER – Through these doors, which open up on St. Martinville’s Main Street just outside the picturesque St. Martin de Tours Church square, will soon be stepping visitors from all over the French-speaking world. La Maison Duchamp takes on a new role as headquarters for Francophone organizations and projects. (Ken Grissom)
The City Council Tuesday night was set at this writing to OK the first of several leases for office space in the center, which will also offer living spaces for visiting students and researchers as well as a conference area for the work of bringing French-speaking peoples together.
According to St. Martinville’s Main Street manager, Danielle Fontenette, one of the architects of the plan, the French International Center should become self-sustaining through a membership program within two years.
Meanwhile, the City of St. Martinville will continue to pay utilities, insurance and upkeep on the 135-year-old building.
One of the first tenants of the center is set to be the World Studies Institute of Louisiana (WSIL), the mission of which is to “develop an international language academy in Acadiana that serves Louisiana secondary students and creates a network of international virtual classrooms in primary schools across Louisiana to feed this academy.”
Also involved in the planning is Philippe Gustin, manager of the Centre International de Lafayette, a division of the Lafayette Consolidated Government.
“It’s exciting that Lafayette recognizes St. Martinville as the center of French heritage in Acadiana,” said Fontenette. “It’s really going to add to the attraction of this city, to have these visitors and all these things going on.
Coming soon to La Maison Duchamp, or the French International Center, is a group of mayors from Haiti who will learn from municipal officials around Louisiana the techniques of mapping streets and utilities in their own communities, a shortcoming exposed by the Haitian earthquake.
Another potential tenant is La Francophonie, an international organization of French-speaking countries. Worldwide there are more than 150 million French-speaking people, two out of every three of which live outside of France.
La Maison Duchamp, one of the anchors of historic downtown St. Martinville, is on Main Street across from the restored Duchamp Opera House. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it was built in 1876 by planter Eugène Duchamp as the family’s town residence.
The City of St. Martinville purchased the building to help preserve the 19th century look of downtown. Damage to the slate roof by Hurricane Gustav was threatening to spread to the interior, and in 2009 the city spent over $172,000 of mostly FEMA money for repairs.
Whenever I drove down Main Street, I hated looking at the Maison Duchamp, because it was literally turning into ruins slowly day by day. It was a vintage reminder of the opulence that once existed in Le Petit Paris. As a result, I started brainstorming what could be done to rehabilitate it, since the City did not have the necessary funds to do the job. This Old House was always a favorite TV show of mine so I contacted them on a whim to see if they would be interested in rehabbing the historic townhouse. They were extremely interested, but they said they only work with homeowners, not municipal or commercial entities. They asked me if I would be interested in trying to purchase the house from the City. I told them that I always planned to retire in St. Martinville, but never thought about moving back this early. They said they were looking for a “Winter Project” for their TV show, because Boston is too cold to efficiently film a TV series from mid-October thru March. This Old House renovated a shotgun house in New Orleans and the Producer said it was their favorite, and a fans favorite because of the Creole culture, people, architecture, food, etc… and this time they wanted to explore the Cajun side of Louisiana.
They had me take over a hundred pictures of everything from the underside of the house to the attic and roof. With each group of pictures I’d email to them they would become more enthralled. Their researchers on staff investigated the history of the house and also found many historic old pictures, everything looked really good. We even discussed financial info on the renovation, nationally donated materials, local architects, contractors, rental apartments or houses for the TV crews, local restaurants and entertainment, proximity to an airport, interesting local segments, ideas for a wrap party (fais-do-do with local Cajun and Zydeco bands) etc… When I told them about all the volunteerism work I had done helping out the less fortunate, it sealed the deal, they were hooked. We were at the point where they wanted to send the new host Kevin O'Connor and Master Carpenter Norm Abram along with the Executive Producer down to St. Martinville inspect the house and to help convince the Mayor and City Council about the many benefits to the city from the worldwide exposure.
In the end, it was not corruption that killed the deal, or convincing the city fathers to sell the structure, it was convincing my wife to move back to St. Martinville. At the time, she wasn’t too keen about that.
It would have been nice though…
Didn’t a local family want to buy the crumbling structure a couple of years ago and the most popular home repair TV show, This Old House, was going to come to St. Martinville to renovate it? St. Martinville would have been on TV in front of 40 Million viewers every week! Do you know what that would have done for tourism? I heard the deal was killed because a former city official tried to undercut the local guy and get This Old House to do the project for him instead. I heard This Old House’s producers said the original guy was the only person they wanted to work with.
Corruption in St. Martinville killed another chance at progress…