Now a woman of mystery, Rosy Wilson was known for her kindness to friends, her love of good music and a passion to go her own way.

Steve Zweibaum, Russ Walker and Phil Wagner seemed like kindred spirits to Rosy Wilson, the enigmatic heiress who opened what became a legendary nightclub only to fade into the fog.

  The three men, like their predecessor, had done their share of partying before trying to channel the spirited vibe. Zweibaum and Wagner spent the better part of the 1990s entertaining friends at their Uptown apartment at 920 Louisiana St. ("We called it Club 920," Zweibaum says). Walker was known for his "Mardi Russ" parties in the French Quarter during Carnival.

  But they didn’t know what they were in for when businessman Walker and Wagner recruited chef Zweibaum to reopen Rosy’s, once the pride of Uptown jazz and socializing back in the 1970s. Using the space as a catering and special-events business, the trio has become schooled in the space’s history with each passing day.

  "That’s an understatement," says Zweibaum, who spent 13 years as the pastry chef at the Hyatt hotel. "Everyone who walks into the room, the Uptown people, they all come in with a story of who was there, who they saw, and there’s sometimes a little bit of embarrassment in their voice because they were 19 or 20 at the time."

  An air of mystery hangs about the owner and the space, which will open once again for "First Annual Mardi Gras Celebration Way Uptown," featuring Big Chief Smiley Ricks & the Indians of the Nation (with Donald Harrison Jr.), and the Forgotten Souls Brass Band. It will be Mardi Gras with a nod to the past, one that owes much to a feisty woman who, for awhile at least, was known for her independent spirit and deep pockets. And though no one seems to know where Rosy is – many think she lives somewhere in California, but don’t know the city — her legacy is intact.

Before Rosy’s, the barroom at Valence and Tchoupitoulas streets was called Feldon’s; before that it was Lane Coggon, the city’s largest cotton supplier. Feldon’s was a neighborhood bar in a part of town going industrially wayward; it eventually closed, and the long wooden bar was ripped from its riser and sold.

  Enter the Wilson family. Roger Wilson was a co-founder of the biggest off-shore engineering and construction company in the world, J. Ray McDermott, whose current revenues are reportedly more than $1 billion a year. He had three children: Tommy, the oldest; Rosy, the middle child; and the youngest, a boy called Butchy. The family lived in a mansion on State Street and St. Charles Avenue. In early 1970, Roger Wilson and his wife died in an automobile accident. Their orphaned children became millionaires.

  But the Wilson children did not morph into party animals by a sudden onset of extreme wealth. Bruce Raeburn, director of Tulane’s Hogan Jazz Archive, remembers them well: "[Rosy] and her brothers were both known as wild children; even as young adults, they were out there burning up both sides of the highway."

  Encumbered by neither work nor school, Rosy could keep the hours she pleased. She would entertain companions in a big music room on the second floor, attracting Uptown musicians who would gather there after hours. Rosy, with an excellent voice, would sing the music of her favorite singers of the day: Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, Joan Baez. With her short brunette hair covering a rather plain face atop a short, plump build, Rosy overwhelmed friends with her sweet disposition.

  "We used to go to parties at her house," recalls Raeburn. "She threw this one Halloween party with the Meters playing. Everyone went cross-gender, or at least human/non-human. It was a strange little party."

  The Wilson children were legally in control of their money, but friends believe accountants constantly battled them over access and amount. Rosy struck a deal, according to her old friend. "Basically, instead of interfering with the management of the money, she said, ‘I’ll let you do what you want if you will give me one project that I can do,’" Raeburn recalls her saying. "‘I want to have a music club.’" The accountants, Raeburn continues, gave Rosy her own money to open a club, "so the top-of-the-line jazz world would have a place worthy of them to play in New Orleans."

Rosy’s Jazz Hall owners Steve Zweibaum, RussWalker and Phil Wagner want to use the treasured space for catering and special events.

  In 1975, the only Uptown clubs listed in the Figaro were the Maple Leaf and Jed’s (the latter of which changed names frequently and was last known as Muddy Waters). The building at 501 Napoleon Ave., which later became Tipitina’s, did not provide live music until 1977. In the 1970s, "Uptown took over control of the music venues in New Orleans, and Rosy’s was one of the first," says Raeburn.

  Musician David Clements, co-owner of both Snake and Jake’s Christmas Club Lounge and the Circle Bar, remembers Rosy’s late-night building searches for the perfect site. Eventually, the young heiress bought the building on the corner of Valence and Tchoupitoulas streets. "She was 18 and ready to rock and roll," says Clements, who did carpentry work on Rosy’s.

  Raeburn, who played drums at the club with the late pianist James Booker, describes the venue as a "warehouse-type place" featuring an outdoor drinking area and an upstairs green room complete with Andy Warhol prints. Write it off to coincidence, but when Rosy bought a mahogany bar from an auction house, she discovered it fit perfectly into the grooves where the old bar had stood. Days later, the auction house sent over the bar’s history, and confirmed that it was the one pulled from Feldon’s five years earlier.

  Reported renovation estimates were between $500,000 and $1 million. Rosy had more money than she could spend, and there were constant demands for more money. "All I knew is that she spent a shitload of money renovating the place," Clements says. "I just tried to be fair because she was my friend, but it got old seeing people robbing her blind.

  "Regardless, nobody had seen a club anything like this in Uptown, particularly on Tchoupitoulas Street," Clements adds with a laugh. "We were like, ‘Tchoupitoulas Street? What?’" However, he says, Rosy had vision: "She was actually way ahead of her time. She was the first person I saw who did the old brick wall with the plaster still hanging on it. Everyone was like, ‘Come on, Rosy, either sheet-rock the whole wall or pull the plaster off,’ but Rosy was like, ‘No, I like that old decrepit look.’"

  The club, called Rosy’s, was New Orleans’ answer to posh New York jazz bistros. "It was like the local version of the jet set was turning out to spend time," Raeburn says. "This was a spectacular new playground that was available to them. It was where the young and restless went to enjoy themselves with a nice jazz backdrop."

  Rosy treated New Orleans to the best music in the country. Before she even opened to the public, she threw a party with Stevie Wonder headlining, his spectacular christening paving the way for performances by such giants as Ray Charles, Dave Brubeck, Count Basie, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Temptations, Sarah Vaughan, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Chubby Checker, Gil Scot-Heron and Doc Watson.

  Promoters doing the math might wonder what she was charging for tickets if the capacity was less than 400 people. Dizzy Gillespie wondered aloud to Raeburn during a visit to New Orleans in late ’70s. "[Dizzy] said to me, ‘Based on the number of people she can get in a full house and what she’s paying me and my group, she could charge a hundred dollars a drink and there’s still no way she can make money.’

  "I think she eventually got bored with it, frankly," Raeburn continues. "But in its day, it was a very creative endeavor that was tons of fun. Quite a gravy-train ride for the musicians."

  Rosy sold the club as office space in 1979 and moved to New York – ostensibly to work on her singing career. Ten years later, the club reopened under different ownership, "but its luster was gone," Raeburn says. Officially called Rosy’s Big Easy, the new Rosy’s would purvey good times; however, it didn’t last long. Etienne Defelice, a former bartender at Rosy’s Big Easy, echoes Raeburn’s verdict on the second reincarnation: "The legend had long since passed." The club failed to get an occupancy license (despite many efforts) and closed in 1992. Rosy’s became office space once more.

Today, the atrium is again filled with green. During a fall

performance featuring Kidd Jordan and Sam Rivers, the lights were low and soothing. Zweibaum fired up a feast while musicians took the stage. The well-dressed crowd laughed and drank, roaming from room to room. People remarked on how perfect it looked, like they remembered from the original Rosy’s. Upstairs, the VIPs looked out across the street toward the river. The mahogany bar, fated for the space, faces the stage. Good and unhurried hands have again taken hold of a small piece of this town’s history.

  For Zweibaum along with Russ Walker, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology architecture graduate, and Phil Wagner, president of Computer Programmers Unlimited Inc., reopening the club – this time for catering and special events – is not an end-all. Like Rosy, this is a joy, an avocation sideline.

  "We’re in no hurry. Why should we be? This is a great space, and we want to do the best we can here," Walker says. "If that means we have a few less events, that’s OK. What we are concerned about is having fun and doing it right."