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HGTV’s De La Paz finds work in Waukesha
No worries. Designer, carpenter and painter Carmen De La Paz utters the phrase without missing a beat. The job needs to be done in less than a month? No worries. The budget is miniscule? No worries. As a design-team member on HGTV’s “Hammer Heads,” De La Paz is used to long hours and the need to think on her feet. But recently De La Paz worked on a project that wasn’t being filmed. The Wisconsin native agreed to design and help build a café for La Casa de Esperanza, a nonprofit organization that serves the Latino community in the Waukesha area. “This is a passion project,” she said. “Your body doesn’t feel time. I had a vision. I knew I was up against the world to get it done, but it’s a passion project.” De La Paz’s mother helped found the organization in 1966. De La Paz said she was involved with La Casa in many ways as a child. As an adult, she remains devoted to La Casa, often stopping by when in town and staying in touch even when at her home in the Los Angeles area. When she heard La Casa needed a designer to work on the new café, she took on the challenge. The aim of Café Esperanza, as its named, was to provide a training ground for local Hispanic residents and a restaurant for community members. “I didn’t have the heart to come back (to the cafe) and see it not reach what I knew it could be,” she said. In February 2007, she and a crew of five started the job, finishing up just in time for guests to arrive at La Casa’s 40th anniversary gala 22 days later. She said she had just enough time to shower before emceeing the event after the last detail was in place. “It was really, really intense,” she said. De La Paz also said the last 72 hours or so were the worst. “My brother was knocking on the windows at La Casa at 4 a.m.; he was worried about me,” she recalled with a laugh. “I said, ‘I do this all the time for the show, you just aren’t there to see it!’” From the custom bar to the handmade picture frames, De La Paz left her mark on nearly every aspect of the café and eventually the outer lobby and entrance area. She modestly admits she was paid the same wage as the painting crew. This wasn’t about money, though, she said, it was about passion. — Jennifer Pfaff Engineering a rebound in New Orleans
One way to overcome the devastation wrought by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in Louisiana is to move forward with projects planned before the levees gave way. To that end, National Survey & Engineering, a division of Brookfield-based R.A. Smith & Associates Inc., was hired for the construction of the 2.5-mile John James Audubon Bridge, which spans the Mississippi River and connects the Pointe Coupee and West Feliciana parishes in south central Louisiana. The bridge will be the only one along a 90-mile stretch of the river and should dramatically reduce travel times, which are currently extended by waits for ferry service. Michael Stumpf, senior planner with National Survey & Engineering, said Pointe Coupee can’t wait to reap the potential benefits of the project. National Survey & Engineering also was hired by the Greater Pointe Coupee Parish Chamber of Commerce to prepare a hotel and retail feasibility study in anticipation of the 2010 bridge opening. “Our job is to determine the current conditions and the potential leisure and business traffic, and to determine if there is enough need for a hotel – and if so, what kind,” Stumpf said. “We are also doing a general review of retail and how the bridge will affect opportunities.” — Jennifer Pfaff
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