Designer Homes

Inside Tara Shaw’s Breathtaking—and Very European—New Orleans Home

One King’s Lane

Tara Shaw has stayed true to her native Louisiana, long ago becoming one of New Orleans’s leading lights in design, but she just can’t stay away from Europe. During the past 25 years she’s taken countless Continental jaunts in search of treasures for her antiques and interior design businesses and to inspire her line of reproduction furnishings. It’s in tucked-away shops in France, Italy, and Sweden that she trained her eye. “That’s the ultimate treasure hunt,” she says. “It’s guerrilla antiquing. Now I can spot a bad finish at 100 paces in the dark.”

You might even say that Tara has found a way to live in Europe in the middle of New Orleans’s Uptown District. In 2004 she found a house in an unusual style for the Southern city—it has a Haussmann look, with a severe facade and hand-lathed stucco. It was, in fact, designed by architect Barry Fox and modeled after a house the original owner had spotted in France. Tara bought it the moment it came on the market, and now she considers her pocket of the city near Audubon Park to be her own “little European village. I can walk anywhere I need to, and I see everyone I know at Langenstein’s [her local grocery shop] at 5 o’clock.”

Inside the house, Tara has set a tone that’s equal parts grand and easy. By using a palette that’s become the byword of modern chic—a well-layered assortment of neutral tones—she’s made her collection of sumptuous, classical furnishings feel as unintimidating and current as can be. This palette has another purpose besides modernizing historic pieces: relaxation. “I wanted serene colors,” she explains. “After juggling so many balls all day, I don’t want to be stimulated when I walk in the door.”

Take in this breathtaking New Orleans home, where Tara lives with her husband and their beloved whippet, and pick up the designer’s well-honed tips on how to live with antiques.