We’re Shane and Stephanie Michelli, residents of St. Joseph since 2020.

We both grew up in Baton Rouge, but we’ve moved a time or two in the last 26 years. Fate, karma, divine intervention – something – landed us in Tensas Parish during the Covid 19 pandemic. My family hails from Tensas Parish, while Shane spent his childhood fishing the lakes between here and Vidalia. Both our families have camps on Lake Bruin. So, St. Joseph is familiar territory.

Our life together has been an adventure; certainly, a path we couldn’t have predicted when we married in 1998. Shane and I met while working at Louisiana Nursery in Baton Rouge. Shane was the nursery manager for Louisiana Nursery’s three stores. I was the buyer/merchandiser for gifts and home decor. Since those early days in the nursery business, we have lived in gorgeous Park City, Utah and the stately Chicago suburbs, with stints in other states as well, including North Carolina and Tennessee. Now, we split our time between Lake Bruin and Baton Rouge, just trying to slow it all down a bit. 

We’ve bought this cute building in St. Joseph that was briefly a garden center, and suddenly we feel our life coming full circle. We’re working on plans for a retail store to include a small garden center along with practical items for life in this rural Louisiana lake community. We’re calling it Boone & Co., Dry Goods and Provisions. (Boone is our beagle. Full disclosure: he runs this show.) We hope you’ll join us on Newton Street when we get it all pulled together. For now, follow along, and pardon the mess. We’re a work in progress.