T E R M I T E & V I N E
1825 DUELS ST
N E W O R L E A N S
L O U I S I A N A
ARTISTS, MUSICIANS, & PERFORMERS
HOME STEADER'S COLLECTIVE
draft version 06-11-007
Inhouse copy only
not for public release
Termite and Vine is a collective homesteading project in New Orleans. We are in the process of renovating a 24 room house that has been sitting empty and neglected for over 20 years. . Our members are musicians, artists, and performers many of whom travel constantly around the country and have no permanent address. Our collective promotes home renovation skill sharing, recycling of building materials, and gives our members the opportunity to volunteer labor in return for earning credit towards future "rent". Our goal is to rehabilitate our building and create workshop space and ultra low cost collective time share housing.
Termite Homesteader's Collective is temporarily Closed to Guests and non members while we prepare to pass our residential building inspection. Over the next few months we will be busy making repairs and getting our house up to code, as well as assembling our workshop space, getting our utilities hooked up, and making permanent living space for some of our members. We expect to be ready to open our doors to all of our traveling friends again after Mardi Gras 2008.
For more information on our project or to Donate or Volunteer please contact
Lily bloodgore at 504-621-1503
Termite and Vine Homesteader's Collective
Termite and Vine House is a collective homestead project where traveling artists musicians and performers have the opportunity to do work trade to help rehabilitate our 24 room house in to permanent communal living space and workshop space. When completed we will have 10 residential rooms available to our members, a large tool room and workshop with equipment for working on buildings and bikes and industrial arts, studio space with library, publishing, textile and art resources, a small bicycle recycling shop, open project space, guest accommodations for traveling artist to crash while they visit New Orleans, and a large back yard garden to hang out in.
Mission
Volunteers are invited to come visit our house and work trade in exchange for crash space while they visit New Orleans to participate in our vibrant and unique creative community. Becoming a Member of the Termite and Vine Collective means that you can have your hours of work helping to renovate our building count towards credit to future rent of private rooms while you live in New Orleans. Termite encourages its members to Time Share private rooms so that they are put to use and that our creative friends have access to affordable housing. Termite is committed to Ultra low cost housing and Rooms are available to our members at the exchange rate of One Hour work trade = One day of Rent or $50 donation per month or $500 donation per year. All monies collected from donations goes towards renovating our building, settling our back taxes to secure owner ship, paying utilities, adding to our workshop, and eventually acquiring more buildings.
History
1825 Duels st. was built in 1927 and has had about half a dozen owners since then including us. Before our house was built everything north of our street was just bare clay patches and swamp land. Our street was laid around 1850 and the neighborhood was sparse housing for a mixed bag of slaves quarters and different immigrants. Maps of the city in 1834 show our block as nothing but swamp on the south end of a small plantation. Most of 7 ward was a single plantation before then that was gradually subdivided up over the nineteenth century. The original plantation was outlined in the late 1700s and New Orleans itself was founded in 1742 by a soldier named Bienville under orders from the French government to build a city to defend the Mississippi from the British. Before that our neighborhood was swamp land that only existed because the Mississippi discharged clay here for a million years as it washed silt down 2000 miles of river to form Louisiana.
Termite & Vine was opened by Lily Bloodgore, November 5th 2005. At that time our house had been empty and abandoned since 1978 and had fallen in to serious disrepair with most of the windows smashed, plumbing and electrical decayed to uselessness and so much termite damage that the floors were caving in and major structural elements were missing. 1825 had been owned along with a few neighboring properties by an Italian family who lived in the neighborhood from the mid thirties until the late seventies when they went bankrupt and lost their houses to the city. For the next 2 decades it was frequently empty or squatted by various people or occasionally a crack house. In 2004 a small business man filed a claim on the building through city hall but for fitted his claim after hurricane Katrina destroyed his home and business in 2005. He passed his claim on to Lily Bloodgore in fall of 2005 and 1825 became a temporary shelter for post hurricane/flood Disaster relief volunteers from a variety of different organizations, including Common Ground, who'd burnt out, or found them selves no longer needed in the capacities they'd volunteered for. By winter 2006 the household at 1825 had switched from volunteer crew to a gaggle of traveling circus performers and musicians who include a number of prominent performers who tour constantly around the country, and can be seen usually in fall and winter in New Orleans, playing at a variety of bars and watering holes and often busking on the sidewalks of the Old French Quarter. Seeing a need for stable housing for a large number of seasonal artists, and backed by interest of many involved to have a permanent place to call home, we banded together, contacted the former owners of our house, filed paperwork with the help of the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority to secure proper legal ownership, and started renovating the heck out of the place with our bare hands and a small pile of rusty flood tools. At first most of our building supplies were obtained by hiring ourselves out to do construction and demolition work and we'd bring all the scraps and leftovers home. Toady we are still committed to recycling building materials from the many construction sites around the city and also receive occasional donations from dedicated recycling projects including Greenproject and Habitat Re-Store.
Rebuilding
1825 Duels suffered over a quarter century of abandonment and neglect before we started working on it. When we moved in November 2005 there was no water or electricity, no toilets or sinks or baths, the floor was caving in in 4 rooms, joists were missing, giant holes in the roof big enough to put your head through, over 20 missing windows and the doors all smashed or falling off, and there was a termite nest on the ground floor over 7 feet high, 12 feet long and a foot wide that had eaten away a significant structural component of the house. In the past 2 years we've added doors and windows, rebuilt walls, replaced joists, installed plumbing and electrical fixtures, and began to replace the floor, the most profound effect though has been that filling termite with our collection of friends and eclectic artists has given her a happy inspiring personality, and laid the foundation for us to build not just a house but a home for the little family we've grown to be.
In spring of 2008 we will be applying for our residential occupancy inspection and we have lots to do before then. Over the next few months we will be replacing floors, having the electricity turned on properly by the electrical company, building a 20 foot high ceilinged living room, improving our workshop space, and putting finishing touches on the private personal living spaces. Theres a ton of work to do and we're lucky right now to have a core group of committed individuals who are committed to the not so long term vision of making this our permanent welcoming home.
