For four decades, Chef Paul Prudhomme brought south Louisiana cuisine to a global audience from his French Quarter restaurant, K-Paul’s Kitchen, at 416 Chartres St.

Later this summer, the Historic New Orleans Collection will begin using the building to help bring a different aspect of local culture – the city’s unique history and heritage – to an ever-widening audience, both homegrown and from around the world.

The HNOC is putting the finishing touches on a $6.4 million renovation of the building, which it purchased in late 2023 for $5 million. When completed in August, the three-story structure will house staging areas and prep space, where HNOC staff can build and assemble the increasingly elaborate and interactive exhibitions that tell the story of New Orleans and its diverse people.

“What we’ve done throughout our history is acquire buildings in the French Quarter and adaptively reuse them – both to preserve them and engage the public in the history and culture of the French Quarter,” said HNOC President and CEO Daniel Hammer. “This building is the latest iteration of that.”

The move comes as the 60-year-old HNOC is expanding its footprint in the heart of the French Quarter, building out a campus that now includes 15 buildings with museums, courtyards, research space, meetings rooms, offices, storage and staging areas.

Hammer, a native New Orleanian who joined the organization nearly 20 years ago and has been its chief executive since 2019, believes the growth and sustainability of the HNOC is vital to the city’s future.

“If the French Quarter, where 90% of the tourists come, is going to be a place that’s attractive and of interest to tourists in the future it needs to also be a place that’s attractive and of interest to the locals,” he said.

From liquor closet to media room

Work crews with Ryan Gootee General Contractors have been renovating the 175-year-old building for more than a year. Though the exterior of the 13,800-square-foot structure bears familiar hallmarks from its K-Paul’s days, including the wooden picture box that displayed the restaurant’s daily menu, little else is recognizable.

The ground-floor dining room has been reconfigured into several large rooms that will be used to physically assemble exhibits like Making It Home, which honors the city’s Vietnamese immigrants in the 1970s and tells the story of one family’s journey through a full-size recreation of their home.

The former K-Paul’s courtyard, where diners once feasted on blackened redfish and Cajun popcorn, will be used as an outdoor work space for painting and welding the props and materials uesd in exhibits.

The building’s second floor, where Prudhomme once baked his jalapeno cheddar rolls and decadent bread pudding, has been transformed into offices that will be used for technology and multi-media.

The third floor, once home to the restaurant’s liquor closet, now comprises a wellness room for employees, media studio, more offices and conference rooms.

When completed, 24 of the HNOC’s 130 employees will work out of the building.

“It’s important to keep our people in the French Quarter, where they are keeping the French Quarter alive – not just as a relic of the past but as a living, breathing neighborhood today,” Hammer said.

Growth mode

The HNOC was not initially looking to buy the Chartres Street building, which was vacated when K-Paul’s shut down in 2020 during the pandemic. At the time, it needed too much work, Hammer said.

In 2022, a local group bought the building with plans to turn it into a breakfast and lunch spot. But those plans fell through and in 2023, the group put the building back on the market.