The Bellemont, Part the Last (part two) (the actual last)

(For the first part of this post from my 2012 return to the Bellemont, click here. To see what it looked like in 2008, click here.)

 

BAR

The Bellemont's bar and lounge has gone by other names, most recently Brella's. In 1957 it was The Planters' Room.

 

 

 

The black and white photos above and the other historic shots here are from Baton Rouge library archives, dug up by Becky. In the above case, an article/brochure effused praise of the rooms' Old World-meets-New World decor, murals, furnishings, the chandelier imported from Czechoslovakia, and yadda. I regret not looking behind the bar for the old mural, but didn't examine these photos til after I had visited.

 

The Bellemont, Part the Last

Most accomplishments in my adult life first appeared as items on to-do lists written on scrap paper. An abandoned motor lodge over 1,000 miles from my Brooklyn apartment called The Bellemont first made it back onto one of those to-do lists on March 30 when a commenter on this blog wrote that it was the lodging for Bette Davis and Joan Crawford while shooting the film "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte" at Houmas House on River Road. (Joan did not last long on the film set-- it's too much to get into here, but there was no love lost between the actresses. Here's a quote on imdb.com attributed to Bette about Joan: "For a goddamn week in Baton Rouge, she brought twenty pieces of luggage. It was a black-and-white movie but she had color-coordinated outfits for the daytime scenes, and for the night shots all of her evening dresses were chiffon, which meant that the wardrobe lady had to spend hours ironing them in the one-hundred-degree weather." )

It wasn't just those two superstars who stayed at the Bellemont (allegedly): it was Clark Gable, John Wayne, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, and later Jackie Gleason and Richard Pryor when filming "The Toy", as well as Sonny and Cher, presumably when they were employed full-time by America as wearers of horribly awesome polyester pantsuits.

And all of this is just what I gleaned from digital hearsay in my blog comments. There is much history at The Bellemont. There are people who remember it and stories to be told. There is at least an article to be written here, and I'd love to write that article. I wished I had the time. While I am grateful to be an employed writer, after a minimum two-hour round trip of commuting each day, I return home drained of the energy for such extracurriculars.

 

 Only about two weeks ago, when I heard they were tearing down The Bellemont, I knew I had to go down and see it all before it was too late, and I pitched the article. Before, I'd only seen it from the outside looking in--this time I would get inside and I would really explore it. Fortunately, Memorial Day weekend was coming up. And fortunately, my flight attendant friend had buddy passes so I could travel on short notice. And fortunately in this case, things do not move fast in Baton Rouge, including demolitions.

Here is just some of what I saw at The Bellemont on one day during its final weeks of existence.

 

 

Huey P. Long Fieldhouse Pool

 

 

The Huey P. Long Fieldhouse was completed on the LSU campus in 1932. Hearsay says that Huey Long intended it to be the biggest pool around, longer than any run-of-the-mill Olympic-sized pool. It was designed by Weiss, Dreyfus and Seiferth, the same firm that designed the new state capitol.

UPDATE: This originally said "old state capitol" and a few commenters pointed out that I had my information wrong. Please forgive this damned Yankee.

Until the 1970s, it was required that every LSU student take a swim class, but by then the pool was already in decline. It has been closed since approximately 1999 and has been silently crumbling ever since, relatively unnoticed amidst the thriving campus.

In early June, I was allowed access to the condemned structure housing the pool *with police escort.* Gotta say, I love having a police escort. They can escort my scared ass any time around abandoned buildings.

Abandoned Multifamily House

Apologies for my absence from blogging; I've started a new job and am getting married in less than a month, both factors which are taking up energy I normally direct toward prowling around abandoned buildings like a weirdo. But I've been working on the facilities people at LSU to gain access to the historic condemned Huey P. Long Fieldhouse (if anyone can pull any strings, please do), and I got back to my prowling roots this weekend.

I don't know how I never noticed this huge empty house on the corner of Government and 22nd before, but it took biking right past it to finally notice.

 

Endless Buffet of Leftovers

And now, a bunch of sites I've been meaning to post from two recent excursions, but they were trumped by the showing and telling of the time I saw coffins and the time I could have ended up in a coffin.

First, yet another car repair joint, this one on Florida and more colorful than most. Note the sinkhole in the repair floor, below. 

 

The real Superstore : No prices every day

Judging by the font, the real Superstore began claiming "Low prices every day" around the early 80s.

Some "whatever happened to..." speculation about Superstore here. (I think we all know what happened. Its initials are W-m.)

 

One that's probably not going to reopen

When we last left Romano's, they were "closed for renovations," and it looked like this.

Here's the update on that place.

More Gustav Damage: Christian Book Store and more

This is one of many businesses on Florida Boulevard whose freestanding roadside sign, as you'll see below, took a beating from the winds of Gustav.

 
But more interesting to me was that instead of all the usual crap being left inside an abandoned, er, closed for repairs business, it was standing out in the lot for the world to see.

The next Gustav update

Remember Rome Cleaners?

I guess that sawhorse means "don't go under the beat-up awning" but of course I did not listen.

Remember the sign announcing that Rome Cleaners was having a sale on unclaimed wedding gowns, that made you want to kill yourself? Well, how would you like to see those gowns? You would? Me too!

Ahhh...nothing like a yellowed wedding gown, on display at a dry cleaner, with an obvious stain on it.

How many horror movies does this photo remind me of? Let me count them...

Half-here today, gone tomorrow: The Turkish Baths

Rumors of the Turkish Baths' imminent demise have not been exaggerated.

The fiance and I happened upon it in this condition yesterday, a year almost to the day from the first time it caught my eye. See the first post about the place here.

This building was the first spark to the interest that became Abandoned Baton Rouge. I was sad to see the old place go, but I'm glad I caught it halfway. And at least now I could look inside...what was left of the inside.