Genealogy Data Page 289 (Notes Pages)

Note: Salvatore was naturalized January 7, 1895.

AN ENTERPRISING DESIGN FOR AN ENTREPRENEUR
Saturday, May 14, 2005 Times Picayune, New Orleans, Louisiana
Stephanie Bruno
Acclaimed as New Orleans' finest example of Prairie-style architecture, the house at 7929 Freret St. makes a strong visual statement on a block filled with Queen Anne, Colonial Revival and other familiar designs. Typical of the style championed by architects Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright at the turn of the century, the tan brick house hugs the ground and extends along a horizontal -- rather than vertical -- plane. A low iron fence in a geometric pattern lines the sidewalk and emphasizes the home's horizontal profile. The exceptional property is a fitting monument to its equally extraordinary first owner, Salvatore D'Antoni, a Sicilian immigrant whose family business became the Standard Fruit and Steamship Co.
Born in Sicily in 1874, D'Antoni came to the United States in the 1880s. His early years in Louisiana were demanding and sometimes discouraging. Hard freezes and a Mississippi River flood destroyed his family's produce farm upriver of New Orleans. But his fortunes improved in 1899 when he married Maria Vaccaro of New Orleans, whose expansive family also was in the fruit and produce business.
Maria Vaccaro's eldest brother, Joseph, was born in Contessa Entellina, Sicily, in 1855 and came to the United States in 1867. His brothers Felix and Lucca later joined him in New Orleans, and together they managed a small farm, selling produce from a wagon in the city streets. After their sister married D'Antoni, the men pooled their resources and began the search for a reliable source of fresh produce. After D'Antoni made a scouting visit to Honduras and recognized the area's potential, he and the Vaccaro brothers began importing Honduran coconuts, then bananas. Their first ship was a two-masted schooner named "Frances" for one of the Vaccaro sisters.
Though there were several financial catastrophes along the way, the import business eventually took off and the company established headquarters in La Ceiba, Honduras, before incorporating as Vaccaro Brothers and Co. in 1906. Soon the company began operating steamships and cultivating, instead of simply importing, bananas and other crops. By 1915, Vaccaro Brothers rivaled Samuel Zemurray's United Fruit Co. for dominance of the Latin American banana trade to the port of New Orleans. During World War I, when both companies had to compete for ice to refrigerate their ships, Vaccaro Brothers trumped the competition by buying all of the city's ice houses, making Joseph Vaccaro the "Ice King of New Orleans."
By 1917, D'Antoni had been installed as vice-president of the business. He hired New Orleans-born architect Edward F. Sporl to design a spacious family home on three lots on Elm Street (now Freret). Sporl had once worked in partnership with H. Jordan Mackenzie, the architect credited with bringing the Prairie style to New Orleans in the early 1900s.
The Prairie style was one of several expressions of the Arts and Crafts movement of the turn of the 20th century that rejected classical forms and embellishments in favor of clean, horizontal lines; the use of local, natural materials; and a strong relationship to the physical environment. Chicago architect Louis Sullivan first espoused the concept and is described in one source as "America's first truly modern architect." But it was Sullivan's protāegāe, Frank Lloyd Wright, who seized his mentor's mantra -- "form ever follows function" -- and catapulted to international fame.
It isn't known whether D'Antoni asked for a Prairie-style house when he hired Sporl. According to files at the Historic District Landmarks Commission, the house reflects an unusual pairing of Prairie architecture with elements of the Italian Renaissance style. The landmark nomination for the property cites the recessed entry flanked by projecting wings and the skillfully detailed pergola over it as elements derived from Italian Renaissance buildings but interpreted in Arts and Crafts styles. Perhaps the home's terraces and buff-colored bricks reflected D'Antoni's fondness for his Mediterranean homeland as much as an interest in modern architecture. Whatever the inspiration, the house was completed in 1919 and D'Antoni moved in with his wife, Maria, and their three children.
Vaccaro Brothers expanded rapidly, in part because it was able to purchase surplus ships after the war at a discount. In 1924, the company changed its name to Standard Fruit Co. and began selling shares publicly. Two years later, still a giant in the banana trade, Standard Fruit added "Steamship" to its name and began offering pleasure cruises aboard its ships bound for Latin America. Colorful brochures promised "Twelve days of vacationing, afloat and ashore, through the dreamy waters of the Sapphire Sea." Ships such as the Contessa (named for Joseph Vaccaro's birthplace) and the Cefalu sailed the seas between New Orleans, Havana, La Ceiba, Kingston, Vera Cruz, Cap Haitien, Tampico and other Caribbean ports of call. By 1935, Standard Fruit was operating 35 ships and D'Antoni was its president.
D'Antoni died in 1957, and in 1964 the remaining partners in Standard Fruit sold a controlling interest in the company to Castle & Cook, a Hawaii-based grower and exporter of pineapples and sugar. David Murdock bought Castle & Cook in 1985, and merged it with his business, the Dole Corp. Dole reported five years later that 40 percent of its food division profits came from banana sales, thanks in part to the D'Antoni and Vaccaro partnership that dated back nearly a century.
D'Antoni is buried in Metairie Cemetery along with his sons, Blaise and Joseph, and his daughter, Rosina. Rosina's grandson, attorney William Syll Jr., owns the family home today. Syll, who works for the foreign service in Guadalajara, Mexico, makes periodic trips home to Freret Street with his wife, Charlotte. Their daughter, Renee, lives in the house -- the fifth generation of the D'Antoni/Vaccaro family to do so.
"I can't imagine this house ever leaving our family," said Renee Syll. "Who could ever appreciate it the way we do?"
. . . . . . .
Note: "Salvatore" D'Antoni also appears as "Salvadore" or "Salvador" in various sources. Sources: Renee Syll; Robert J. Cangelosi, Jr.; The Historic Districts Landmarks Commission; www.ancestry.com; food.oregonstate.edu/faq/uffva/banana3.html; www.angelfire.com/ca5/mas/turismo/turi003.html; www.answers.com/topic/standard-fruit-company; www.marrder.com/htw/jul99/cultural.htm; www.dole.com; www.timetableimages.com/maritime/images/stand.htm; flagspot.net/flags/us3/8hfst.html#standardfruit; www.nutrias.org; www.prairiestyles.com/lsullivan.htm; architecture.about.com/library/bl-sullivan.htm; www.oldhouseweb.com/stories/Detailed/12457.shtml
Stephanie Bruno can be reached at housewatcher@hotmail.com.
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Address: 7929 Freret St., Carrollton Historic District
Built: 1919
Architect: Edward F. Sporl
Type & style: Prairie-style villa
Features: Built low to the ground with horizontal emphasis and a low pitched roof. Constructed of Roman brick -- a tan brick half as thick as conventional brick. Terrace setting with four short flights of steps to the entry, which has projecting wings on either side. Banks of multipaned windows. Canopy of metal and glass over the Short Street entrance into the ground-level basement. Pergola over main entrance, with interlocking rafters and beams supported by octagonal engaged and free-standing columns. Clerestory lights over the front entry. Terracotta tile installed on the leading edge of projecting eaves and other elements. Low wrought-iron fence in geometric patterns. Outbuilding in the same style as the main building.