Throughout the two weekends of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Richard Millet’s home and expansive corner yard become a microcosm of life in New Orleans, where leisure, entertainment, culinary and commercial endeavors are conducted as the rest of the world swirls beyond his fence.
Since 2005, Millet has been the subject of much envy. His circa-1873 raised five-bay Eastlake Center Hall cottage is located at an intersection where thousands pass each spring, dragging folding chairs, children and water bottles to the golden gates of Jazz Fest. Millet sits on his deep front porch, taking it in, often with hordes of guests who drift from the porch into the nearly 12,000-square-foot yard, perhaps checking on whatever tantalizing thing perfumes the air as it roasts on a spit.
Maybe there’s a band playing in the “Garage Mahal” behind the house or friends shooting hoops on the basketball court. Sometimes, artist friends cover the fence surrounding the property with their art, which they sell to passersby.
Across the yard of mature oak, pecan and sycamore trees, a window opening was cut into the wooden fence onto the sidewalk in 2006 so Millet’s children could sell cups of fresh, icy lemonade to the sweltering masses shuffling by…