Bywater Activities

This extravagant haven is New Orleans’s best-kept secret. It’s a mansion dating from the late 1800s, complete with a heated saltwater pool, sauna, and a restaurant serving up Creole fare that tastes just as good poolside as it does in the frescoed dining room. A mere fifteen bucks gets you access to this Bywater oasis. During the city’s muggy, humid months, escaping to the Country Club for fries and cold rosé by the water is akin to finding water in the desert. Trust us.

Artist Brandan Odums (aka BMike) has made his 35,000-square-foot studio in the Bywater an ode to African American legends like Martin Luther King, Jr., Harriet Tubman, and Malcolm X. These spray-painted murals take up entire walls that rise as high as twelve feet, providing social commentary, inspiration, and an education to the studio’s visitors from Odums’s point of view.