Born in Davant, Louisiana, Naydja, along with her husband Adolph Bynum is one half of the “Dream Team of Preservations.” She developed her love of old architecture from her parents — her mother was into older homes, her father was a carpenter.  She started her career as a nurse, but working on old historic homes was always in her background. Says Naydja, fixing an old home is like nursing — bringing things back to life and in a city as old and historic as New Orleans, this is really important work.

“New Orleans is like a museum itself,  the whole city could be a museum of houses.”
Naydja Bynum, preservationist

In the years after hurricane Katrina, their work has helped with the city’s housing shortage. Their goal is to update and modernize a home, but keep the old architectural style intact. To that end, she served for time as president of PRC — the cities Preservation Resource Center, which helps homeowners remodel — but with an historic edge. In New Orleans, the old homes have a charm you rarely see in other cities — in part because the city has strict rules on not changing the facade or front of these old places.

You can meet Aldoph and Naydia in our program “Heart & Soul,” where we look at two similar cities, New Orleans and San Francisco, and meet all the people trying to preserve the old architecture that defines these two iconic destinations.