<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The fence and garden surrounding this in-town New Orleans-style cottage gives the feel of a quiet, private refuge in the midst of the hustle and bustle of everyday life.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Charlie Ortego admits he is no horticulturalist. He’s made many mistakes and often turns to Google for help.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“What you see here is from what I call on-the-job training,” he said about his home’s front garden. In it is exactly what you’d expect in a Southern garden: an oak, a fountain, a curving flagstone walkway, shady spots, sunny spots, shrubs trained into trees, blossoms and ferns. All is artfully arranged with contrast and balance – and purposely without symmetry.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">When he started not so much “planning” his landscape as “planting” it, he did so with this in mind:</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“I wanted it to look like a little 85-year-old lady lives here who loves to plant things and can’t quite keep it all up,” Ortego said, smiling.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He is burly, bald, bearded, owns a Harley and has a penchant for antiques, especially Tiffany lamps. He and wife, Kayla, live in a home built around 1908 when Park Avenue was referred to as Line Avenue, according to the abstract.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The tall iron fence sur</span><span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">rounding the yard is unusual and eye-catching with its base of cinderblock finished with slate. It was built with the New Orleans old cottage style look in mind. Ortego built it for much less than a local company’s estimate, scouts around for deals and does his own work.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The metal had to be cleaned, primed and painted. He put up one section at a time. His son helped, including showing his dad how to mig weld. The project took nine months.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That’s not Ortego’s only baby. He is especially proud of his 1950s Chambers Fireless Gas Range, which he regularly uses for cooking.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“I bought that in Port Allen,” he said, “from a TV producer who bought a hotel full of them. Now he sells them – and boiled peanuts.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Chambers gas ovens and ranges were named for the man who invented them. Construction is heavy gauge steel and porcelain enamel. All models were thickly insulated, which enabled owners to use them like an ordinary range or cook using retained heat, which is why “fireless” is part of the appliance name.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Chambers also put out a cookbook with recipes, cooking times and instructions regarding what temperature the gas could be turned off while the food continued to cook with the retained heat. This publication was called The Idle Hour Cookbook. Ortego has an original Chambers cookbook.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Collections in the home, in addition to the Tiffany lamps, include stained glass, vintage signage and tins, antiques and quilts.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He created the top of the dining room table using lumber from an oil rig board run road and mounted it on an 80-year-old base picked up at an antique store.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The 1,850 square foot home was purchased in 2000.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“I wanted to live on a few acres in the country,” Ortego said. “I could find a house I liked but not the acreage I wanted or the acreage I wanted and not the house. I looked in DeQuincy, Ragley, Indian Village and Roanoke for a place and just happened to be driving by here one day and saw the “for sale” sign and stopped.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The original heart pine floors polished to a high gloss were one of the first things that caught his attention.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Not long ago, he was inside his home and heard a knock at the door. When he answered, a man and an elderly lady were standing there. The man said his mother was visiting from Houston and this was the house in which she was born. He wanted to know if they could come in. She looked at the house and pointed out the back room wasn’t always a room; it was once a porch, and then she pointed toward the living room fireplace as the place where she was born.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“I built a nice house in Carlyss and felt blessed to have been able to raise my kids in that community,” Ortego said. “But I feel differently about this place. It’s cozy in the winter and nice in the summer. I’ve closed it in with the fence and garden and made it nice and private. It took 16 years of work – and this is home.”</span><p>The New Orleans-style front gate opens to the Ortego home on Park Avenue. (Rita LeBleu / American Apress)</p>