Though nonverbal, Avery Alvis easily communicates her desires with a beckoning gesture, followed by a sweeping one.
She compels others to follow as she leads them on a tour of her family’s home and 2-acre plot in Hammond, which her parents developed with her interests at heart.
“When she was younger, we worked with geneticists to try to have her diagnosed,” Janelle Alvis said of her 25-year-old daughter. “We wanted some idea what to expect so we could meet her needs, but her genetics came back normal, which indicates there is some very tiny irregularity with one of her chromosomes.
“So, her syndrome has no name. She is just Avery, and this is her world.”
Focused on caring
Janelle Alvis, a native of Marrero, left her career as a math teacher to focus on caring for her daughter, who was born in need of numerous surgeries and specialized therapies.
It was February 2005 when Janelle and Todd Alvis bought the 4,000-square-foot home where they raised their three children.
Janelle, Avery and Todd Alvis in their Hammond kitchen with a display of the hibiscus blooms for which Todd Alvis is internationally celebrated.
PHOTO BY JEFF STROUT
Built in 1999, the two-story home features an asymmetrical design with European elements, including a multigabled roofline with varying heights and widths and Palladian-style windows.
An especially large arched central window and the three vertical arched windows on the right wing of the home are a signature of European and postmodern residential design.
The façade combines both brick and stucco elements. A deeply gabled roof accommodates interior ceilings that soar from the first floor to the roof in several places.
Welcome to ‘Barbie’s Dungeon’
“We bought the house and incorporated things to keep Avery entertained,” said Todd Alvis, a native of Lutcher and owner of Lube-Tech, a firm that serves operators of industrial machinery throughout the Southeast.
“We call this place ‘Barbie’s Dungeon,’” said Todd Alvis.
Adjacent to the driveway at the side of the home is a sinuous koi pond swirling with large fish. The pond is finished with irregular slabs of slate and shaded by a frilly Japanese Dissectum Atropurpureum maple tree with a tiered structure and gracefully weeping branches.
A Japanese-style garden surrounds the koi pond, which is shaded by a frilly Japanese Dissectum Atropurpureum maple tree with a tired structure and gracefully weeping branches.
PHOTO Jeff Strout
“Avery’s job is to feed the fish,” said Janelle Alvis. “She takes this very seriously. She will never let us forget.”
The aquatic specimens seem to thrive in her care.
A small bridge over the pond leads inside, where Todd Alvis, an internationally celebrated hybridizer of tropical hibiscuses, is prone to lay out flawless displays of hundreds of blooms from the 1,000-plus hibiscus plants growing in his large greenhouse.
The Alvis family’s kitchen is the central hub of the Hammond area home.
PHOTO Jeff Strout
On a recent day, displays covered the kitchen island and counters as well as the dining room table in the next room.
Avery Alvis is clearly delighted by the kaleidoscopic blooms, some of them the size of dinner plates. She frequently accompanies her parents to the many shows they visit throughout the region, where Todd Alvis displays his many blooms and hybridized seedlings in competitions.
Avery Alvis retreats to the office she shares with her father to listen to the Kidz Bop music she favors. Todd uses the space to display the medieval and medieval-inspired antiques and weaponry he collects, as well as some of his many awards for the showstopping hibiscus varieties he has created.
PHOTO BY JEFF STROUT
Beyond the dining room is Avery Alvis’ office. She does not watch television; music is her passion, and her office is her domain.
“She loves Kidz Bop,” said Janelle Alvis. “Anything with kids singing. She has a huge collection. She has an iPhone and an iPad, both with communication programs, so she can tell us what she wants to listen to.”
Minnie Mouse and more
The home’s second floor is occupied largely by spaces reflective of Avery Alvis’ interests. Her bedroom is decorated in a palette of pinks and blues, where she displays her vast, treasured collection of stuffed Minnie Mouse dolls, which she arranges on her bed just so.
The ceiling in Avery’s room is painted to look like a cerulean sky with puffs of white clouds. The walls are hung with framed artworks featuring colorful flowers, butterflies, and princesses.
PHOTO Jeff Strout
The ceiling in her room is painted to look like a cerulean sky with puffs of white clouds. The walls are hung with framed artworks featuring colorful flowers, butterflies and princesses.
An adjacent room is designed for time with her siblings — Kendall Alvis, 29, an artist, and Ian Alvis, 21, an engineering major at Louisiana Tech — when they are home.
Work by the Alvis’ elder daughter Kendall, an artist, fills a wall.
PHOTO Jeff Strout
The rooms are finished with a pair of comfortable sofas scattered with colorful pillows.
The room is dominated by a mural painted by Kendall Alvis based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.” It features the silhouettes of the nine members of the “Fellowship of the Ring” as they journey through Middle-earth, set against a vibrant sunset background.
The “Lord of the Rings” movies are an “obsession” shared by Janelle Alvis and her daughters.
“We watch the extended versions every year at Christmas,” Janelle Alvis said.
The Alvises created a large, screened, comfortably furnished space for entertaining. Dubbed ‘The Catio’ for its primary occupants, it affords a view of a large, organically shaped swimming pool with a deep slate-blue interior.
PHOTO BY JEFF STROUT
Downstairs, the Alvises created a large, screened, comfortably furnished space for entertaining.
Dubbed “The Catio” for its primary occupants, it affords a view of a large, organically shaped swimming pool with a deep slate-blue interior, which speaks to Avery Alvis’ fascination with water.
She likes to feel the water on her skin. She likes to drop her toy mermaids into the pool and watch them swirl about.
Avery loves to toss mermaid toys into the family pool to collect later.
PHOTO BY JEFF STROUT
“Inside, we really can’t leave her alone because she loves water,” said Todd Alvis. “She will turn on a faucet and flood the house without a care in the world.”
Comments are closed.