The clients were a newly married couple with two teen-aged children, setting out on a new life as a blended family. The husband, an urban planner, resisted the flight to the suburbs and was determined to settle within the city limits. His wife was teaching in an urban primary school, and readily agreed. Both parties had separately endured live-in renovations of old houses, and choosing new construction was an easy decision for them.   

The site chosen was one of the few never-developed lots in Lake Oaks, a subdivision reclaimed from Lake Pontchartrain in the 1930’s, and built out in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Each lot was planted with a live oak tree in the initial development, and today’s neighborhood is distinctive for the leafy streetscape and relatively high elevation above sea level.