Lee Lane Shops

Below are a series of pen and ink sketches of the shops on Lee Lane in 1982. Artist Winky Chesnutt made the sketches for an ad in the Chamber of Commerce annual magazine. 

 

Click on the images to make them larger. 

 

Lee Lane is the first street that crosses Boston Street as people drive in from the east, over the Bogue Falaya Bridge and past Boston Commons. The street, while only about two blocks long, packs in a dozen or so very quaint and interesting shops. It has provided the initial marketing exposure for many St. Tammany area artists and jewelry makers. 

Southern Living Magazine Article

Thirty four years ago, in 1985, an article in Southern Living Magazine had this to say about Lee Lane:

"Coving­ton visitors discover lovely neighborhoods and distinctive shopping areas. Most of the town is shaded by oaks, which are draped in gray-tinted moss.

"More than a dozen restored Victorian cottages are clustered along Lee Lane in Covington, near the Bogue Falaya River. Trimmed with gingerbread, curlicues, and balustrades, they house a varied collection of specialty shops.

"The restoration of Lee Lane began about 15 years ago (1970) when Mab Valois opened The Armoire. which features chil­dren's and women's clothing. Others soon followed her lead, applying fresh coats of paint to neighboring buildings and stocking them with hand-milled soaps, artwork, an­tiques, and hunilcraltcd items from across the South.

 

The Armoire

"Ann Moores opened The Kumquat, a bookstore and gift shop, on one corner of Lee Lane. The business soon outgrew the building, and Moores built a reproduction of a 19th-centurv plantation home across the street to house the store. The Kumquat offers an impressive selection of fiction and nonfiction best sellers, cookbooks, and children's books. Prominently displayed near the entrance are The Moviegoer, Lost in the Cosmos, and other works that estab­lished Walker Percy, Moores' father, as one of this country's outstanding contem­porary writers.

"Marjorie Allen patterned The Partridge after the year-round Christmas shops in her native Scotland. Many of the hand­made ornaments and decorative pieces are from Germany and England. One section of the shop is filled with nutcrackers of all shapes and sizes, from the traditional soldier models to a 3-foot-tall guard.

 

A Lee Lane streetscape by Ann W. Gauthier

"At The Pear Tree, the focus is on grape­vine baskets and dried flower arrange­ments. The Lily Pad's specialty is hand­made shower wraps, and the most pop­ular items at Quilts & Quaints are quilts with the double wedding ring pattern. Lee Lane's Backstreet carries a line of food products from Vidalia, Georgia, including burnt sugar mustard, Vidalia onion pickles, and onion relish."

Here's a link to a map showing what shops were on Lee Lane the following year, 1983.

For more information about Lee Lane, see the following links:

Lee Lane Photos From The Past

Lee Lane at Night

Lee Lane Map 1988

Southern Living Article About West St. Tammany