Home since 1985
Published 6:27 pm Monday, April 30, 2018
The Abbie Fletcher House
When the American Press asked Abbie Fletcher to choose background music for what she describes as three distinct stages of her life thus far, she chose three musical forms. For her married life, before her 38-year-old husband was killed in an auto accident, she chose “songs.”
“A song can be simple, jazzy, artful, sad, happy,” she explained, “a variety of sounds, rhythms and texts.”
This variety, for Fletcher, symbolizes partnership and family life.
The Fletcher house is filled with artful vintage and recent black and white photographs. Shown here is Fletcher and her father.
Stage two was a sonata, which can have separate sections that work together to make a whole composition. During this stage, Fletcher decided to pursue her Master’s Degree in Music at McNeese State University.
“I had a great time at McNeese and am still good friends with many of the people I met. Fred Sahlmann was head of the department at the time.”
She gave piano concerts, accompanied the Masterworks Chorale of the Louisiana Chorale Foundation, remained active in her church, taught piano and worked for Mayo Land and Title. In 2011 Fletcher received the 2011 Mayor’s Keystone Award for her work in helping produce area performances and programs.
It was during this sonata stage that Fletcher purchased the house she has called home since 1985, an incredibly neat and carefully maintained midcentury modern on 10th Street.
This large family room served as Fletcher’s piano studio and an adjoining room houses sheet music galore.
“My husband and I had a big house on Pujo Street, Fletcher said. “I had walked by this house many times, and it always appealed to me. It just looked like me.”
When it listed, Fletcher scheduled with the real estate agent to see it right away.
“It took about ten minutes for me to know this was the house for me,” she said.
The natural light provided by large windows throughout the house– and especially in the room she planned to use for the piano studio– is what sold her.
In it are two grand pianos, an over 100-year-old Steinway and a Lyon and Healy. Open shelving holds photos of some of her piano students and small mementos of her travels.
A local interior designer helped Fletcher choose the window coverings and linens for this room, a place where she turns off the hustle bustle of the day for a good night’s sleep.
Interesting keepsakes throughout the well-ordered home include items from her grandfather’s Eldorado, Arkansas jewelry store. She demonstrates how the watch bench in the living room works, pulling out a small screen from the bottom of the workspace that catches any small parts that the jeweler might accidently drop during repair. The early 1900s English oak settee and chair with Barley Twist arms are also from the jewelry store. In the guest bedroom is a trunk, which her father used for all his clothing as a young man. The tea wagon and paper dolls belonged to her mother. In the master bedroom is a desk Fletcher used as a girl and a marble topped dresser that belonged to Fletcher’s grandparents. If that dresser could talk, it might tell how Fletcher’s grandmother and grandfather saw it for the first time while honeymooning in New Orleans, and about its journey from New Orleans down the Mississippi River and then the Ouachita River.
“The last leg of the trip was on a hay wagon to my grandparents’ home is how the story goes,” Fletcher said.
The dresser, despite its age and travels, in is great shape.
The master bedroom is a tranquil space that seems to float in diffused light. It is wrapped on three sides by windows. Windows are covered by upholstered cornices, sheer curtains and blinds. The house design keeps the room private. The springboard for the window treatments and bed linens were selected from a print Fletcher purchased during a trip to Paris: Van Gogh’s Peach Tree.
“I’ve been very happy in this house,” Fletcher said, “and I think part of that is because of the way the windows allow me to enjoy the outside view and natural light.”
Today, she appreciates the light and view more than ever. An eye disease is beginning to affect her vision and work as an accompanist. She has begun to focus on vocals. Last year she was part of the Chancel Choir from First United Methodist Church of Lake Charles to perform Mozart’s Requiem in New York’s Carnegie Hall. Now, in a new stage of life — key the improv music – Fletcher is creating as she goes and making changes in her home poco a poco – room for a new incumbent exercise bike to keep her moving and a painting nook to express herself creatively.