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To reach Soldini House from Interstate 49 is easy. Just before you reach the river coming in, you turn left (north) on Rue Jefferson to Rue Demeziere. Soldini House is on the southwest corner of that intersection.
Soldini House is owned by Justin Normand; it had belonged to his grandmother. It was designed by Italian architect Athaneze Trizzini for his partner, Joseph Soldini, who designed other homes in Natchitoches.
Soldini was originally a bricklayer; he purchased the lot from Mrs. Charles Greneaux and built the house in 1847. In 1858, he sold it to chichester Chaplin, Sr. the house was originally a one-and-a-half story Greek Revival house with a gallery across the front and back.
In 1925, it was totally remodeled into the vernacular Italian Renaissance style seen today. It has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places, as evidenced by the plaque near the front door.
The house can be seen in the opening sequence of homes in Natchitoches featured in the movie "Steel Magnolias," which starred Sally Field, Darryl Hannah, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine and Olympia Dukakis. It is actually at
the corner of Demeziere and Jefferson,
just two blocks south of the house used as Sally Field's residence in the movie.
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When our friends arrived for their tour and came around the front of the house, we came out to meet them. Before we did anything else, our friends wanted to get some pictures of the house and of us. You can have a look at three of the best of these pictures if you will click on the thumbnails at right.
Although we didn't take our friends around the outside of the house right away, we did later. Around at the back of the house we have added a carport for our vehicle. Not very historic, but it serves its temporary purpose until we can provide something better. The extension on the house is the new kitchen; it was previously the slave wing of the big house (at the time, the actual kitchen was in a separate building just behind where the carport is now.
Also around back is a green house that was built in 1939 when Justin's grandparents were married. It was to be a "garage apartment" for them to begin life in; they did that and just never got around to moving away. They raised Justin's father and his two aunts there, and Justin grew up there as well. (About where its front steps hit the ground was where the original kitchen for the big house once stood. That separate kitchen burned down in the mid-1930s, but by then the slave wing conversion had been completed and it was no longer needed anyway. The corner lot also has a number of beautiful old trees as well as a loquat tree and a couple of lemon trees. The lemon trees provide huge lemons that have a wonderful sweeter taste than the small ones in the grocery stores; we often send guests home with a bagful of them.
We also seem to have adopted an orange tabby cat that likes us well enough but who doesn't take to strangers easily. Late in the afternoon, just before our friends left for home, they took two more pictures of us. The first one has us with our friend Fred, and you can have a look at it here. The second one has us and our friend Ron, and you can see that picture here.
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But it isn't just the things (mostly family heirlooms and memorabilia) that make Soldini House immensely interesting (and one of the premier stops on the various home tours that Natchitoches is famous for). Indeed, many of the pieces of furniture, artwork, china and other items are quite beautiful, but one could see much the same in many, many other old homes around the country. What has made this house and its contents so interesting to visitors are the stories behind each and every piece, stories that both of us have researched and documented. These stories involve our families and their family histories and we think they add a richness to any tour we give.
We are always eager to show guests around, so we gave our friends the whole tour- an expanded version of the one we give on home tours and at other times. We've done so many tours that the stories and explanations flow easily, and we are able to entertain questions. So we began our tour on the front porch, telling our friends about Soldini House and how we came to own it.
Then we went inside for an intimate look around. One of my friends remarked later that he wished that he'd had the foresight to film the entire tour. It would have been very interesting to include it on this site for Soldini House, and perhaps we will do something of the sort in the future. Like Soldini House, this Web site is a work in progress.
In any event, our friends caught only snippets of our narrative in a couple of the movies that they did make. Our friends concentrated on taking a few movies to show the layout of the house, and numerous pictures of some of the more interesting or beautiful objects that grace the various rooms. While we don't yet have a complete tour here, perhaps by looking at the pictures our friends took that day and reading some of the narrative they supplied you will get a good idea of what Soldini House is like inside.
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Now that you've seen the relationship between the living room and the parlor, let's look at some pictures taken in each room. First, there are some thumbnail images below for the pictures taken in the living room. Click on these thumbnails to view the full-size pictures:
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After touring the living room and trying to tell our friends all that we knew about the furniture and decorative objects, we headed across the house, past the stairway to the second floor to the parlor.
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Here, our friends took a few pictures of the room and some of its contents. If you will click on the thumbnail images at right, you can have a look at these pictures.
From the parlor, we walked through a doorway towards the back of the house to a small bedroom. This room was used originally as servant's quarters, since there was a small bathroom attached to it. We have put a beautifully-decorated small bed along the south wall of the room, just inside the doorway from the parlor. There are some other interesting furniture pieces in the room, and the doorway to the bathroom (through which you can reach the dining room) is along the north wall of the room. Over the bed is hung a mid-century map of Natchitoches.
From the back bedroom, we walked through the bathroom into the formal dining room, which is actually in back of the living room.
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In the picture of Fred in the formal dining room at left, you can see the French doors behind him that lead into the living room. The formal dining room is dominated by the large dining table, and there are breakfronts and chests along the other walls of the room, where we keep most of our old china, silverware and candle holders. The walls are adorned with pictures of Justin's grandparents and great-grandparents (grandfather Walter Everette Alcock, Sr. and grandmother Henri D Williams Alcock, the latter affectionately known as "Bobo").
Take a look at the picture at left. You'll see that Fred is looking at a dress that is on a display stand. Click on the dress and you'll see that it is a wedding dress. Now look over at the wall behind Fred, and you'll see a picture of Justin's grandmother Bobo. If you click on her picture, you'll see that she was photographed in that very same dress! (Right next to Bobo's picture is her husband, Walter Everette Alcock, Sr.)
Just over the small china cabinet behind the wedding dress is a portrait of Justin's great-great-grandparents on his grandfather's side- George and Lucy Green Alcock. Click on that photo to see the full-sized image.
In this last photo of
the dining room,
taken from the opposite end, you can see the doorway that leads down a short hall underneath the stairs to the front door.
Next, we walked through that door and down the hallway towards the front of the house, turning to take the stairway to the second floor. From the landing where the stairway makes a right-angle turn, our friends stopped to take a picture looking from that landing down into the living room, and you can have a look at that picture here.
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Our friends were interested in many of the furniture pieces and decorative objects that they noticed while making their movie, so we went back around in the same direction so they could take some pictures of them. You will have seen many of these in the movie itself, but if you click on the thumbnail images below, you can have a detailed look at them:
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When we finished upstairs, we went back down to the living room and then back again through the hallway to the formal dining room. From there, there is a doorway back to the newer addition on the house, this addition containing an informal dining room and kitchen.
When we got back there, our friends noted that the table was set for lunch, and as we passed through the informal dining room into the kitchen, our friend snapped a picture of one of our china sets on display. We had prepared some jambalaya for our friends for lunch. As we showed our guests around the renovated kitchen, they took the opportunity to photograph both of us, and you can see those pictures here and here.
Shortly, we sat down to Justin's delicious lunch and one of our friends took a candid picture of us, and you can have a look at that picture here.
For our neighborhood tour, we took our friends north on Jefferson for about five blocks and then turned around and returned to Soldini House. It seems as if almost every large home along Jefferson is a Bed and Breakfast inn- including the "Steel Magnolia" House just two doors up from ours. (It's called the "Steel Magnolia House" because it was used as Sally Field's house in the movie "Steel Magnolias." Unlike many movies, that one was actually filmed in and around Natchitoches; only a very few interior scenes were filmed in Hollywood.) So, along our walk, our friends took a number of pictures of some of these charming old homes and gardens, and if you will click on the thumbnail images below, you can have a look at them:
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We returned to our house and piled into our van for a trip downtown (actually only a mile away). Our first stop was the store we run that sells all kinds of decorations and things themed on holidays. At this time of year, we are full of all sorts of Christmas decorations. Decorating for holidays being one of the major pastimes in Natchitoches, which is nationally-known for its Chrismas light displays and holiday festivals. The Christmas Lights festival was featured in "Steel Magnolias." You can take a look at the inside of our store here and here.
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Our store is only half a block from the main street (Jefferson), which borders the Cane River/Lake and park, so we walked down there next. It was this area that was used as the setting for the final scenes in "Steel Magnolias." In those scenes, the kids are hunting Easter eggs. It's also the scene in which Sally Field's grandson slaps Weezer, after having been primed to do by Olympia Dukakis. And, if you remember the scene, Darryl Hannah goes into labor and her husband comes in his Easter bunny suit and pickup truck to take her to the hospital.
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Since the day we gave the tour above, we've added something to Soldini House. We worked hard to put in a large fountain just south of the front porch in the side yard of the house. We tried to make installation look professional, but as you can see here, we actually did all the work ourselves. We love the finished product; the fountain can be seen by anyone sitting on the front porch as well as by passers-by on Jefferson Street. Click on the thumbnail images at right to see the result of our hard work!
Thanks for going on this impromptu tour of Soldini House and Natchitoches with us and our friends. Perhaps the next time you visit our Web site, we'll have something more professional and complete for you to see. You can always email us using the link at the bottom of the page if you have specific questions.