Evergreen – The day Jonathan Sherman dodged downed trees and power lines on his bicycle, waded through waste-high water, then was chased away from his waterfront dream home by local police – that was the day the former TV newsman decided to leave Louisiana.
“I lifted my bike over my head … because the water was rushing in off the river so fast,” Sherman recalled recently over coffee at his new home overlooking Evergreen Lake.
“I reminded myself of the video we had taken in TV news” of other people shouldering similar crises. “Now I’m in the video,” he remembered thinking. “It’s time to go.”
Everyone who witnessed Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent destruction two years ago clings to a survival story. Jonathan and Monica Sherman loved New Orleans as much as anyone. Visitors see that in the Rocky Mountain lodge house the couple and their three kids – 12-year-old twins Kathleen and Madeline and 10-year-old son Jack – now call home.
Here, the mystique of the Big Easy meets relaxed Colorado living as works by the family’s favorite Louisiana artists hang near casual French antiques appointed with lush textiles.
The Shermans temper the heartbreak of feeling forced to leave New Orleans with the satisfaction of landing an idyllic Western setting nestled among pine trees and overlooking a mountain lake.
“There was a tropical storm when I first moved to New Orleans (18 years ago),” Jonathan Sherman said. “I remember thinking to myself then, ‘Why do people live here?’ That was before we were hooked.”
Hooked on the city’s spicy food and ever-present music and art. Jon Sherman parlayed his media earnings and contacts into a successful real estate business there. Monica applied the design experience she had gleaned working in her hometown of Chicago to New Orleans’ housing market.
First, these sweethearts from the University of Iowa lived right in the heart of the city among its many galleries and jazz clubs. Later, they moved to a three-story, 4,000-square-feet West Indies-style home with white columns, dark shutters and a pool facing the Tchefuncte River.
“It was a working river,” Monica recalled. “You would see these incredible barges and fishing boats going out in the morning to catch shrimp and crab and all sorts of fish in Lake Pontchartrain. It stopped you every time.”
When Katrina hit, the Shermans and their dog Chaser hunkered down with another family and their pets at a house 5 miles north of the waterfront. They lived for days without electricity, running water or public services.
They drove to Baton Rouge for gas and even farther to buy a generator. When food rations ran low, they sought out a Federal Emergency Management Agency distribution center for water, ice and ready-to-eat military meals.
“It’s different when you make a move because of a job opportunity or a lifestyle change,” Jonathan Sherman said. “You choose that. It’s more difficult when you feel like you are forced to make that decision.”
The family’s home in Madisonville, La., suffered significant but manageable damage after Katrina. The same was true of the handful of rental properties the Shermans owned in the vicinity. Jonathan quickly repaired the properties before the market for construction supplies and labor skyrocketed.
Then, Hurricane Rita hit.
Between fretting business affairs and the family’s well-being, and attempting to assist renters with their property and affairs, the Shermans’ decision to move became firm. They sold nearly all of their Louisiana property and dipped into savings to relocate and renovate the Colorado lodge.
“We have about nine years left of our children living at home,” Jonathan said. “That’s nine years we can never get back. Did we want to spend (them) focused on trying our best to fix up that city, which we do love? Or did we owe it to ourselves to spend those years focused on our kids?”
The need for a fresh start beckoned the Shermans to a place where they had enjoyed two holiday ski trips. Monica pined after a view in her new home but accepted that she would not likely find waterfront property in Colorado.
They bid on and lost one house in Evergreen. Then, the lakefront lodge came up for sale one morning after a particularly restless night when Jonathan worried over whether he had made the right decision..
His new home stands on a parcel of land people in Evergreen refer to as the Point. It includes a small cabin-turned-guesthouse built in the 1930s, and a second, larger house built about a decade ago.
“For years they did July Fourth fireworks up here,” he said. “This is literally a point overlooking the dam. Teenagers came up here to make out.”
A new kitchen facing the picture windows, distressed wood floors and a refinished fireplace greeted the Shermans when they moved in last year. They spent the next five months rehabbing the exterior with new landscaping, stonework, patios and windows.
“If we were going to be living in Colorado,” Sherman said, “I wanted it to have a Colorado look.”
Monica softened the aesthetic inside the house by sewing floor-to-ceiling satin drapes and vibrant, detailed linens for the bedrooms.
“It was an adjustment, with the weather and the altitude,” she said. “But living here is spectacular. You can’t compare this view to anything.”
Staff writer Elana Ashanti Jefferson can be reached at 303-954-1957 or ejefferson@denverpost.com.
