 |
|
The painting
Life at the Metairie was
moved to the New Orleans Fair Grounds grandstand
when the Beverly Country Club burned down. When
the grandstand was also lost in a 1993 fire, a
reproduction of the painting was commissioned for
the new facility (shown) -- which, unlike the
Beverly, was rebuilt.
|
|
Courtesy of New Orleans Fair Grounds
|
Hey Blake,
I have a casino question for you. I understand that there was a gambling casino
called the Beverly in Jefferson Parish. What is the full history of this place?
Peter Gilberti
Dear Peter,
You understand right. There was a Beverly with a very interesting history, a
history that ended with a fire that destroyed the building on July 7, 1983.
Here's how it all began.
Once upon a time there was a plantation on
River Road, built in 1857 for Francois Pascalis de LaBarre IV. However, in 1892,
the family lost the plantation at a sheriff's sale. Following a series of owners,
it was finally purchased by a horseracing expert -- Jack Sheehan, who converted
the old plantation into a roadhouse named Suburban Gardens.
Sheehan's "roadhouse in the country" became
very a popular place with a great deal of drinking and gambling where the likes
of Louis Armstrong and Papa Celestine played for spectacular parties. Hanging
in Sheehan's place was a large 1867 painting by Theodore Moise titled Life
at the Metairie, a fabulous work showing 50 prominent gentlemen gathering
for a race at the old Metairie Race Course.
When it became obvious that bigger facilities
were needed, Sheehan, in the mid-1920s, started building a new Suburban Gardens
resembling the old Whitehall Plantation on a similar location near the levee.
The plantation itself was sold to the Jesuit priests, and the painting was moved
to the Fair Grounds racetrack.
The 1920s were "roaring" in spite of Prohibition,
but in 1930, Sheehan sold his place to a gambler named Joe Brown, who leased
it to Blaize D'Antoni. The club was renamed the Embassy Club. When Prohibition
ended in 1933, it was renamed Southland Ballroom and continued to operate until
the mid-1940s.
In 1945, Frank Costello, reputed New York
Mafia boss, and several of his friends decided to open a club in Jefferson Parish.
The group also included Southland Ballroom owner A. G. Rickerfor, Phil Kastel,
Dudley Geigerman, and Carlos Marcello, supposed crime king of New Orleans.
At the time the building wasn't much, but
it was soon turned into a plush gambling house with roulette tables, deep carpets,
sparkling chandeliers and a dance floor. And it received another new name: the
Beverly Country Club.
The establishment opened in December 1945
and flourished until it was forced to close in 1951 for several reasons. One
was an investigation by the Senate Crime Investigation Committee; another was
a lawsuit by the federal government for $600,000 in back taxes.
"Dandy Phil" Kastel, promising that the club
would be a dinner and supper club without gambling, reopened it in 1959. This
time it was called simply the Beverly. However, Kastel was not a man of his
word, and soon the dice were rolling. Public outcry began anew, church groups
protested, and more court action followed.
In 1962, Kastel, aging, nearly blind and broke
from trying to reopen the Beverly, took his own life with a 38-caliber revolver
in his apartment at the Claiborne Towers.
Once again, an attempt was made to reopen
in July 1967, and the new manager was Jimmy De Nicola. Opening night saw well-dressed
diners who danced to music of Phil Zito's Orchestra. But there was no gambling
-- really!
Success was not meant to be, however, and
soon the Beverly was dark again.
It reopened for the last time in 1972 as the
Beverly Dinner Playhouse. For a decade, it put on popular shows and plays by
Tennessee Williams and Neil Simon. Famous stars such as Lana Turner and Elizabeth
Taylor created great excitement when they performed at the theater.
The 1983 firethat destroyed the theater at
217 Labarre Road burned out of control for five hours. A part owner, state Sen.
Michael O'Keefe, said at the time it probably would be rebuilt.
By the way, the magnificent painting that
hung in Jack Sheehan's Suburban Gardens was also destroyed in a fire. In December
1993, the old Fair Grounds grandstand burned and with it went the painting.
Today, however, there is a reproduction hanging in the splendid new grandstand
that, unlike the Beverly, did rise from the ashes
