It’s the kind of story that could only take place in New Orleans: A lesbian couple move into a former bakery/saloon/hair salon, raise their kids in it, and only sell it when another lesbian couple—who want to turn it into a snowball stand, performance space, antique shop, and home base for their nomadic drag careers—put down an offer.
The likelihood of all this happening, even in New Orleans, is, roughly, a snowball’s chance in hell—which, not entirely coincidentally, is the name new owners Kitten LaRue and Lou Henry Hoover gave the frozen-treat shop that now occupies a bright corner of the property. Larue and Hoover fell for the building, its owners fell for their ambitions for it, and soon enough the property was theirs, along with the empty lot next door.
A bit of zoning contretemps came with their arrival: The lot was zoned for commercial use, but the building had, at some point, been rezoned residential. “Nobody had ever thought of the building as anything other than a home,” said Jennie West, who runs the local firm Studio West. But the pair, better known as the burlesque drag duo Kitten N’Lou, have a lot of imagination. When performances slowed down during the pandemic, they began slinging snowballs from a porch, which is how West got to know them. The pair live and work as Kitten N’Lou, and they fantasized about their new home embodying that. When the local government couldn’t quite see their vision, the pair enlisted their neighborhood friends and fans to write letters of support. “That reinforced how they bring community together,” said West. “And that helped sell the zoning to the council members.”
After two years in limbo, they were finally able to begin the transformation. From the street, yellow doors announce Chance in Hell. Inside the shop, Studio West whipped up a fantasia: a dripping pink disco ball glittering over a stepped counter, a nod to the business’s porch roots, with a looky-loo window near the base so guests can say hi to their pooches. Red-and-white checkerboard floors evoke picnic blankets, while a counter running along the sides is sprinkled with fake fruit and more glitter suspended in sunny resin. “The contractor went on this adventure with us,” West said—one that continues next door, where Kitten’s sister Meghan has set up shop as Just Like Heaven, under a pressed-tin ceiling the design firm lovingly restored.
The flights of fancy continue upstairs, where the living quarters are now accessible through a private entrance, a side door in the neighboring lot, just past the original jelly-bean-shaped pool the duo sometimes use as a set for their drag performances. Interiors boast new arched passageways, rendered in a cotton-candy-and-vichyssoise color palette, and extensive collections of the pair’s costumes and collectibles. “We did a flip,” West said, “moving the kitchen to the back, the living rooms and guest bedroom to the middle, and the bedrooms to the front.” That way, the project’s dozen-plus shades of pink could spill glowingly out into the world after dark, as if raising the curtain between public and private. “They’re nocturnal and don’t mind being at the street edge,” West said with a laugh. “They can sleep through anything.” It’s an improbable, sweet finale. “On an amazing March night, or October in New Orleans, when the whole house is open, it’s perfect,” West said. “Fully dipped.” Just like a snowball.