Oak preservation marks medical office location

What you see resting upon two acres, graced with large oak trees, located between the Purple Peacock and Ardoin’s Marble Works on East Laurel Avenue, is opened to the public.
The brick two-story new building became Eunice’s newest Hebert Medical Group facility. The building was erected back in autumn of 2014 with some land cleared, some trees moved, and a large parking lot built in front of the office building.
The opening date, according to Dr. Richard “Chip” Hebert was Aug. 31, with a grand opening to be announced. The Hebert Medical Group will include providers Richard “Chip” Hebert, II, M.D., Charice M. Hebert, M.D., Donald W. Barnes, M.D., Lawrence M. Simon, M.D., Erin Hall, P.A., Brooklyn Latour, F.N.P., Calli Hart, F.N.P. Womens Health and Naomi Pontiff, audiologist.
Dr. Hebert plans to add a small park on the two-acres of land, which they would like to dedicate to Mr. Dewey Brown and his wife, Audrey, who developed the land from a rice field starting in the 1950s. He added, “Live Oak Medical Park will be the name of the complex and Hebert Medical Group will occupy the main building in the back of the property.
“There is space for another 4,000 square foot building in the front of the property on the west side and possibly a small building in the middle of the property on the east side. These will be developed as we find interested parties to move forward. We are saving the middle west side for the park. The grounds of the Medical Park have turned out beautifully, and we were able to keep all of the original Live Oak trees, some fruit trees and are using the mother vines from the original muscadine trellis to re establish in the back of the main office building. The original home site remains just as peaceful a place to sit and appreciate nature and all of God’s beauty.”
The Hebert Medical Group will continue to provide the original expected services for their patients as performed at their prior office, but expansion of services is certainly on the horizon.
Hebert added, “We will continue to provide our current services within the specialties of ENT, pediatrics, obstetrics & gynecology, allergy, audiology and hearing aids. He added, “With the new office we will also be expanding into many other related services such as ENT specific CT scanning, office based sinus surgery and balloon sinuplasty, ENT and GYN surgical minor to moderate surgical procedures, Cosmetic procedures such as botox and fillers, and a lab draw site with more potential services to come.
The larger space allows greater opportunities to provide a wider range of services to the community and surrounding areas in one convenient and setting. In addition, we are entertaining having visiting physicians share space on a time share basis as well.”
The office building is just shy of 10,000 square feet and sits on 2 acres of land and is located at 3256 Hwy. 190 (East Laurel) in Eunice.
Hebert, a “firm believer” of preservation and recycling, has preserved as much as possible of the original trees and vegetation of the property.
The property of the Hebert Medical Group has interesting history. According to Hebert, as he shared, “This property was the original home site of Mr. and Mrs. Dewey Brown, who purchased the property around 1950. They began grooming the land by planting several types of trees, shrubbery, and a garden.
Hebert added, “They focused on some of the more traditional species in our area including Oak, Pecan, Magnolia, Pine and several fruit trees. This grouping included fig, plum, persimmon, lemon, orange and pear trees as well a large muscadine trellis.
“Originally the perimeter was flanked by both pine trees and a large bamboo barrier, but over time the majority of the pine trees died and the bamboo widened its hold on the property. The Browns built their home around 1955 and raised their family. Mrs. Audrey had a beauty shop built on the north-east side of the property while Mr. Dewey in his spare time continued to add to his collection of buildings, which included a barn, shed, shop and “cabon.”
“When we purchased the property from Mrs. Brown and family, we knew we wanted to preserve the integrity of the natural landscape and all of their hard work developing it. We also knew that we did not need any of the buildings on the property in our plans.
“This is when we contacted Phillip DeVillier with DeVillier House Movers. He took over and slowly took down the smaller barns and sheds on the property, recycling them for lumber and tin.
“The beauty shop was sold to Phillip Issac, Jr. who then had it moved to its location on Hwy. 190. He re-modeled it to become the Front Page Barber Shop which allowed him to finally return to Eunice from Baton Rouge.
“The original home was purchased by another individual and Phillip DeVillier moved it to the north side of Martin Luther King Drive where it was refreshed and a new family resides there today.
“Lastly was the small cabon purchased by Robert Feucht and moved to his farm on the way to Basile where it became the center point of a new chicken roost. Phillip then continued to clean up the remainder of the property salvaging everything that could be re-used.
“Eventually we had to sacrifice some of the Pecan trees to make room for the new office building and thin out some very old thick bamboo.
Hebert purposely built the office building “set back” as much as possible from Laurel Avenue.
“We purposely placed our building on the south-end of the property to save every Live Oak, which date back to the early 1950’s. We just could not bear the thought of cutting down such majestic trees that can span over multiple lifetimes.
“But, some of the other smaller trees did find themselves in harms way to make place for parking. That is when we had Fuseliers Southern Landscape come to the rescue by moving a large Palm tree, a very old Fig tree and eventually a large Crape Myrtle to our home landscape. ADTEK Tree Services, owner and Arborist , Adam Dupre, did a superb job reclaiming the beauty of the Oak trees by trimming them to the state you see them in today. Justin then up lit the trees on the front of the property, expertly accenting the building and adding to the majestic appearance of the old oak trees.
The design of the office building is by Ritter Maher Architects. Hebert said, “When it came to designing the building, we enlisted the services of Ritter Maher Architects as part of the turn key development of the property by SL Shaw Developers.
“They were very attentive to our goal of preserving the property, creating a building that blends in with the landscape and providing us with a new, very specific multi specialty medical work space.
Financing of the building Hebert turned to local, “As well, we turned to JD Bank, our local commercial and personal bank, formerly known as Guaranty Bank, for our financing needs. They were able to provide us with a package to make this project come to life.” All in all, this has been a 2-1/2 year project to date from the original purchase.
“It has been fun, it has been trying, but it has been all worth it. We want to personally thank all of our patients, our referring physicians, Acadian Medical Center, and the Eunice community for helping us get to this point in our life and careers. We hope to continue to humbly serve you in coming years and look forward to beginning this new chapter in our lives.”