WSJ Real Estate - After a grueling two decades of personal hardships and natural disasters, Renee Br

After a grueling two decades of personal hardships and natural disasters, Renee Brown finally found a peaceful haven for her small family. Now on a large, old estate she bought 150 miles from her native New Orleans, she is expanding her business developing natural products and reconnecting with her family’s history.⁠⁠Ms. Brown, 43, started by adding to the large and varied garden left by the previous owner. A portion of her 2 acres is filled with trees, including more than a dozen citrus, plus olive, peach, pear, cherry, kumquat, papaya and guava. She also planted eggplant, tomatoes, beans and herbs, and her favorite flowers—orchids.⁠⁠She isn’t stopping there. She also plans to build a greenhouse in memory of her mother to grow rare tropical plants, and even more orchids. “I’m hoping by next spring we can start our pool and koi pond,” she added. “It’s going to be even more Zen.” ⁠⁠Ms. Brown was in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina threatened the city in August 2005. She fled with her then-4-month-old son, her mother and her father, American Roots musician Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown. Her father died days later of cancer. Her mother died of cancer in 2018.⁠⁠Upon her return, she found that their family homes in Mid-City and Slidell were destroyed. Ms. Brown eventually rented a place for herself and her son in Mid-City while keeping an eye on the market. It was her sixth home in the city, post-Katrina. But the combination of Covid, a spike in crime, having to home-school her son, now 17, and her daughter, born in 2010, pushed the family to look far outside city limits for the home they would own. ⁠⁠Even after she began the process of buying the property, her ordeals continued. Ms. Brown spent months trying to find the right loan for a small-business owner, and after 12 rejections finally got an approval from a firm in Miami.⁠⁠“I obsessed over the home,” said Ms. Brown of the property, which has architectural elements from the 1850s through the 1890s.⁠⁠More via the link in bio.⁠⁠📸: for
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