Story and Photos by Elodie Pritchartt
What do you do when you want to find a cozy little getaway where you
can relax, someplace pet friendly so you don’t have to board the dog?
Buy a hotel, of course.
That’s what happened when New Orleanians Jim Derbes and his wife Jan
Katz found themselves making an offer on the old hotel on the square in
Woodville, Mississippi back in April of 2006, shortly after Hurricane
Katrina.
It couldn’t have been a better match for Woodville, as the couple
hopes to breathe new life not only into the building but into the town
square, too. There are plans for condos, offices, an art gallery, a yoga
studio, and a coffee shop with a restaurant and music venue.
“We didn’t leave New Orleans until a few days after the storm, and we
ended up in Houston staying in someone’s home who we really didn’t know
very well, and they wouldn’t let us bring the dog, understandably. So
we boarded him,” said Jan.
Bosco, the couple’s Labrador retriever, had greeted us at the door — a
quiet, gentle creature who seemed unimpressed with all the hoopla
generated by his simple needs. We sat at a kitchen table in a room that
was making do as a temporary home, our conversation punctuated with the
sounds of construction in another part of the building.
Jan smiles. “After the storm, I said to Jim, ‘The one thing I really
would love is some tiny little apartment somewhere where we can bring
Bosco.’”
One night Jim was browsing real-estate listings on the computer and
ran across the listing for the old hotel located on the square in the
center of town. The mid-nineteenth century building had definitely seen
better days. It had served as a hotel up through World War II with a
lobby downstairs and fifteen hotel rooms upstairs.
Throughout the years, many businesses occupied the downstairs
spaces—several grocery stores, a Ben Franklin, a drugstore, an antique
store, a boutique, even the Greyhound bus station.
Writing in the The Journal of Wilkinson County History in 1992, Stella Pitts notes:
So the old building waits, its bricks crumbling, its walls
leaning, its rooms filled only with dust and memories, hoping that
someone will come along one day and save it from the destruction that
must surely come otherwise.
Fortunately for the building and
for Woodville, Jim and Jan came along. Although the amount of work
required was a bit more than they’d bargained for, they are taking pains
to adhere to standards set forth by Mississippi Archives & History.
 |
| The view of the courthouse from one of the lofts. |
Jim, who has practiced law in New Orleans for forty-two years, has
also been active in historic restoration and preservation for over
twenty years. He has restored several buildings, two of which garnered
awards, including an 1858 Greek Revival Mansion on Bayou Road called The
Benachi House & Gardens, now a wedding venue.
Over the years he’s restored other buildings in New Orleans and went
into the B&B business. In 1973 he served in the Louisiana
Constitutional Convention. He has also served as president of the
Louisiana Landmark Society and the Vieux Carré Property Owners,
Residents & Associates, Inc., one of the oldest preservation
associations located in the French Quarter.
As an attorney he was the first director of the Release on Recognizance Program in Parish Prison.
 |
| The Woodville Square is surrounded by beautiful historic structures. |
“I was an attorney with the poverty program, was in legal assistance when I got out of law school…”
“And he just finished digging a trench downstairs,” says Jan of what has become his current cause.
Jim’s interest in working with his hands began when he inherited a box of tools from a great uncle when he was a child.
“It was an old toolbox with ancient tools,” he said. “Things that people don’t really use anymore. They’re collectibles now.”
He started making things, learning as he went.
“I had no mentor,” he recalls. “My father was all thumbs. For some
reason, I became interested in the improvement of buildings, and at this
point I’ve probably worked on a couple of dozen in some way or
another.”
 |
| Shards of the past found on site. |
It shows. Walking through the old hotel building, Jim points out the
new cabinetry, all built on site by local craftsmen. The plans for
upstairs include seven condos, one of which they will keep, five that
will be sold and one small efficiency apartment for guests of the other
condo owners.
All of the condos will have balcony access with treetop views.
“And the light is so magical,” says Jan, pointing out the evening light as it played through the branches.
It makes sense that the light would play a big part in Jan’s love of
the hotel. She has an artist’s eye, and has been collecting since
buying her first painting at the age of fourteen.
After completing her English degree at Sophie Newcomb, Jan taught
filmmaking and English for several years, which eventually morphed into a
photography gallery at her home, exhibiting New Orleans photographers
like Clarence John Laughlin and Michael Smith.
In the early 1980s, she closed her gallery and launched an
award-winning line of jewelry, known as Alexa-Jared, sold in 550 stores
around the country. She stuck with jewelry for thirteen years.
“It was wonderful,” Jan recalls, “but I was just done."
 |
| Woodville's Museum on the Square |
Then in the year 2000, Jan’s first husband—the late Judge Robert Katz —died very suddenly.
“All my friends told me I shouldn’t be in the studio, that I had to get out.”
She was hired at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art where over the
years she has worked in a number of positions, including the one she
presently holds as founder and Curator Emerita for the Center of
Southern Craft & Design.
After running into Jim, an old friend and associate of Robert’s, at a Christmas party, the two found love and were married.
Part of Jan’s plan for the hotel is to exhibit some of her collection
of self-taught outsider art and crafts in the common areas.
..While the upstairs is still very much in progress, the downstairs
areas are nearly complete, boasting a combination of modern lines and
design, colors, and light fixtures and accessories from IKEA while
incorporating the old beadboard and flooring of the original building.
“Part of our job,” says Jan, “…is that we want to bring creativity
and life to downtown Woodville. The creativity is here, but at 5:30
everything stops. And the weekends are very, very quiet.”
The coffee shop, tentatively called The Town Square Café, will be
owned and operated by Chef Jason Roland and his wife Caryn of Heirloom
Cuisine, a hugely popular catering company with a kitchen in St.
Francisville, and clients all over the region. The café will serve as a
coffee shop during business hours and a restaurant at night.
Classically trained at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde
Park, New York, Jason specializes in multi-regional cuisine. For eight
years he was Executive Banquet Chef of the Windsor Court Hotel. He also
worked at Mr. B’s Bistro, Muriel’s in Jackson Square and Beau Chene
Country Club, all in New Orleans. With an eclectic, organic menu, wine,
and eventually a full bar, the plan is to offer a venue for dining and
live music.
“This is not a new recipe,” says Jim. “This has worked in urban areas
all over the country for the last thirty years. People have
rediscovered downtown.”
The couple hopes that having shops, offices, cafes, galleries,
exercise studios, and more in this historic town square, considered one
of the most iconic in Mississippi, will breathe new life into evenings
and weekends in Woodville. It sounds like a recipe for success. And
Bosco can come, too.
