Story and photos by Ellis Anderson//
Bill Stakelum is the third generation of his New Orleans family to have a weekend cottage in Bay St. Louis, but the new cottage on St. John is no longer just a getaway, it’s become a full-time home.
It’s called a homing instinct. Lots of animals have it. Some inner compass compels salmon to return to the stream of their birth, and birds to navigate thousands of miles without a map. Each year, millions of butterflies take flight across the vast Gulf of Mexico driven by the same mysterious guidance system.
If scientists want to research the homing instinct in humans, a team should come to Bay St. Louis. It’s a notoriously hard place for people to leave, and if they do, there’s often a strong desire to return. Bill is a perfect example.
His grandparents owned a cottage on Leonhard Avenue (in the town’s Cedar Point section) and his parents had a house on Wolfe Street, bordering a canal. Both of these houses were second homes, places to escape the pressures and heat of New Orleans — retreats where laughter and relaxation ruled.
His grandparent’s house was flooded in Camille in 1969, and the aging couple eventually bid it farewell. Bill’s parents sold their house on Wolfe Street a few years after that.
Although Bill has spent most of his life in New Orleans working as a convention manager for large hotels, he never stopped dreaming of a return. Finally, in 2005, he began shopping for a home of his own. He found one that seemed perfect, but Hurricane Katrina permanently interrupted the sale.
Even then, the Bay kept pulling him back, yet he couldn’t find anything that seemed “right.” At one point, he actually made an attempt to buy his grandparents’ old house on Leonhard Avenue. It had been built in the 1870s and the historic gem was still salvageable even after heavy damage from Katrina. However, it was outside the Bay’s Historic District and lacked any protection or oversight. Before a deal could be struck, the owners bulldozed the irreplaceable community asset.