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For years Annadele’s Plantation, where 19th century northshore settlers once planned to start a town that would compete with Covington, was a beloved brunch spot, restaurant and event venue that hosted countless brides and grooms celebrating life’s milestone moments.
Now it sits behind ropes and a sign that reads “NO TRESPASSING” in stark red lettering, its doors shuttered. Birds trilled in the trees last week — but no patrons were present due to the misadventures of its owner, Gregory St. Angelo, the attorney for the disgraced First NBC Bank.
‘Seized’
“The property has been seized,” St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Suzanne Carboni confirmed.
St. Angelo started serving a four-year sentence last month at a federal minimum-security prison in Beaumont, Texas, after pleading guilty to bank fraud as part of a deal with federal prosecutors.
The Annadele seizure was ordered by 22nd Judicial District Judge Alan Black. The property is being held against about $6 million worth of its owner’s debts, and will be appraised, then sold to the highest bidder. The Colorado-based firm, Summit Investments, that scooped up St. Angelo’s debt requested that the sheriff do just that.
The property has yet to be appraised, and because of its unique historical value, local real estate agents were wary of estimating its worth.
St. Angelo was one of the principal players in the First NBC Bank scandal. He and eight others so far have been sentenced for their role in conspiring to defraud the bank through a variety of schemes, including setting up dummy accounts and fraudulently claiming tax credits. First NBC’s $1 billion collapse is the largest in Louisiana history.
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Annadele now sits vacant at its location on Chestnut St., near U.S. 190 on the east bank of the Bogue Falaya River.
“It’s very lovely and it still has some original touches throughout,” said Robin Perkins, the St. Tammany Clerk of Court’s archivist. “I love the little bitty staircases.”
“That’s how you know people weren’t as tall back then as they are now,” she added.
Early settlement
That area along the river remains the site of some of the earliest settlements in St. Tammany Parish.
“The oldest building in the parish that is really well documented is that old courthouse, which is on the grounds of The Chimes restaurant,” Perkins said, right next door to Annadele’s. The building was completed, according to parish records, in 1818.
“It was going to be the center of a new community, but it didn’t really work out,” Perkins added.
Indeed, the site that Annadele’s Plantation occupies was, at one point, going to be a town that would compete with Covington: Claiborne. The nearby area is still referred to as Claiborne Hill, but the town itself never grew and eventually dissolved.
Annadele’s Plantation itself was reportedly built in the 1830s, by Col. Thomas Sully of New Orleans, as a one-story cottage with 15-foot ceilings in a West Indian style. It was never intended for use as a plantation but was built in plantation style, and was eventually given a moniker: Monrepos.
The property would eventually pass into the hands of New Orleans Mayor Walter C. Flower, who, beginning in 1889, used the site as a summer home. A cotton broker, Leon Gilbert, also of New Orleans, then bought the plantation.
Plantation to restaurant
Gilbert built out the plantation, expanding it and creating much of the structure that can be seen today. He raised the original cottage — to this day, the cypress floors are original. An artesian well, tapped in 1827, still flows but is nearly engulfed by brush these days.
The site had operated, apparently continuously, as a restaurant since the 1970s, under the ownership of the Schroeder family.
Now, a local real estate company has been appointed the legal “keeper” of the establishment, responsible for ensuring that it doesn’t fall into disrepair while it sits vacant.
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