Bob Jones was a regular at Scarlet O’s, the restaurant that in the 1980s and ’90s occupied the Broad Street house his father once owned.

“I felt obligated,” Jones said, laughing.

He kept a monthly tab at the restaurant and bar, which would prepare his favorite drink, a Harvey Wallbanger, as soon as he walked in the door.

He and his family held his mother’s 80th birthday party at the restaurant in 1981.

After Scarlet O’s, the building housed Dagostino’s before sitting idle for several years.

The building is on the verge of entering a new incarnation, recently remodeled as an event venue and reception hall by Downtown Properties.

Jake Stutes, owner of Jake’s Cakes and the future proprietor of the building, said he’s already booked several wedding receptions to be held once the doors open in March. The reception hall will be aptly called “The Governor’s Mansion,” he said.

Sam Houston Jones, the only Louisiana governor to come from Lake Charles, lived in the house with his wife, Louise Jones, and their children, Jimmy Boyer, Willie Boyer, Jelks Boyer and Bob Jones.

The family lived in the home from 1937 until they moved to Baton Rouge in 1940 and again from 1944 to 1951.

The family leased the home to David Garrison during the four years they lived in Baton Rouge, Jimmy Boyer said.

Boyer and Bob Jones recently toured the remodeled home, pointing out where the living room, kitchen, dining room and library were in the now one-room downstairs.

The staircase that used to sit in the middle of the house is now on the side; downstairs and upstairs are both primarily one large room, the bottom of which has been added onto.

The house once also had a basement, which has since been filled in.

“We discovered way back when that Momma would hide our Christmas presents (behind the furnace in the basement),” Boyer said. “We always knew what we were getting for Christmas because we used to go down there and look.”

Jones reminded his brother of a Thanksgiving memory: “Every Thanksgiving, (their mother) would send you and Billie to find a couple servicemen to have lunch.”

They would always return with two or three, Jones recalled.

The brothers said they don’t recall many dignitaries coming to the house ­— their father did most of his political entertaining in Baton Rouge ­— although they did remember prominent New Orleans boat manufacturer Andrew Higgins stopping by the house.

While Sam Jones was running against incumbent Earl Long in 1940, “Earl Long had a state policeman parked out in front every day,” Boyer said.

In addition to Dagostino’s and Scarlet O’s, the house has also served as a nightclub, a fraternity house and a Mobil Oil filling station, the last of which drew the Jones family a paycheck for 20 years.

“This was Highway 90,” Boyer said. “Everybody coming through town had to come right by here.”

It wasn’t until 1948 or 1949 that the family got a one-room air conditioner.

“I remember how heavenly it was going in that room when I was a little squirt,” Jones said.

Stutes now has the opportunity to build a new generation of memories at the old house.

Stutes said that when he first walked in he “loved it,” although he was unsure about running a reception hall.

“I kept looking for the no, but there wasn’t one,” he said.

(Rick Hickman / American Press)

Rick Hickman

(Rick Hickman / American Press)

Rick Hickman