Lafourche bed & breakfast offers visitors Cajun hospitality

Claudette Ledet Pitre is living her dream. She’s converted her 21-year-old, four bedroom, three bathroom Victorian home, which is nestled along Bayou Lafourche in Raceland, into a cozy bed and breakfast.

Pitre is a familiar face in the Lafourche Parish School System. She taught elementary school there the majority of her 33 years in the field before retiring.

Since September 2005, however, she’s embarked on a second career as a B&B owner/hostess.

The idea came shortly after the storms on the evening of her mother’s funeral. Pitre and her sisters were mingling with family and friends when the conversation turned to the devastation Hurricane Katrina had caused in neighboring parishes.

“We had just buried my mother,” Pitre recalled. “We went back to her house and sat around for a few hours. Then someone mentioned that a group of animal rescue workers were living in tents at the old Rosela Plantation about two miles from my house.”

The group was from Seattle. They were part of the crew helping rescue stranded animals in New Orleans.

That evening, Pitre made a decision that would eventually change her retirement path. She decided to share her home, where she had lived alone for 16 years, with the visitors.

“These people were sleeping in tents and it was hot,” she said. “I had the space and there was no way I would have let them sleep out there another night.”

At the time, Pitre’s home wasn’t adorned as it is today. But, she said, the workers slept in a comfortable bed and enjoyed home-cooked Cajun meals.

By January 2006, Pitre decided to completely convert her home into a bed and breakfast. She began studying what made B&Bs successful, applied for her licenses and visited several operations along the bayou to learn more about running her own business.

To furnish the rooms of her home, Pitre included a number of pieces she inherited from her mother.

Opening the bed and breakfast hasn’t been easy. Pitre does the majority of the upkeep of the house on her own, but she said a number of people occasionally lend a hand.

“I’ve come a long way since the first time I allowed strangers, who became like family before they left, live in my home,” she said.

At the bed and breakfast, visitors can sleep in one of four bedrooms equipped with everything they would need to live like they were at home. Visitors enjoy a deluxe continental breakfast and have access to a laundry facility and sitting area. Rooms also have telephone, cable and Internet connections.

A professional body massage therapist is also available upon request.

Since opening nearly three years ago, Pitre has had guests from all over the world. An avid traveler, she enjoys mixing her heritage with other cultures.

“This is the best part about owning a bed and breakfast. I have traveled around the world and I embrace everyone from all nationalities so that they can experience a little Cajun culture,” she said. “I build friendships and people come back again and again – just like family.”

Pitre believes that guests seek her bed and breakfast because it is convenient. A Chateau on the Bayou is 10 minutes from Thibodaux, 15 minutes from Houma, Luling and Larose and 30 minutes from the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.

“My guests say they prefer a bed and breakfast over a hotel because it is their ‘home away from home,'” she said. “My guests can rest in the hammock and watch the bayou flow slowly by or rock in the comfortable rocker on the back porch while watching the birds search for vegetation.”

“Sometimes they can even see a bald eagle soaring over the bayou where the fish are jumping or catch a glimpse of an alligator raise its head above the water or an egret perched on the wharf,” she added.

Pitre said the Cajun hospitality experience is guaranteed.

Retired Lafourche Parish elementary school teacher Claudette Ledet Pitre sits outside her Raceland home, which she has converted into a new venture – A Chateau on the Bayou Bed & Breakfast. * Photo by SOPHIA RUFFIN