Hotel Monteleone is a family-owned and operated

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...

located at 214 Royal Street in the

French Quarter The French Quarter, also known as the , is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. After New Orleans (french: La Nouvelle-Orléans) was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city developed around the ("Old Squ ...

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

, Louisiana,

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

The hotel includes the only high-rise building in the interior French Quarter and is well known for its Carousel Piano Bar & Lounge, a rotating bar. Built in 1886 in the Beaux-Arts

architectural style An architectural style is a set of characteristics and features that make a building or other structure notable or historically identifiable. It is a sub-class of style in the visual arts generally, and most styles in architecture relate closely ...

with an eclectic flair, Hotel Monteleone is a historic landmark and a member of

Historic Hotels of America Historic Hotels of America is a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation that was founded in 1989 with 32 charter members; the program accepts nominations and identifies hotels that have maintained their authenticity, sense of pla ...

, the official program of the

National Trust for Historic Preservation The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a privately funded, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that works in the field of historic preservation in the United States. The member-supported organization was founded in 1949 by ...

.HistoricHotels.org
Hotel Monteleone Page
/ref> The hotel has 570 guest rooms, including 50 suites.

History

Antonio Monteleone arrived in New Orleans from

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

around the year 1880. A

cobbler Cobbler(s) may refer to: *A person who Shoemaking, repairs, and sometimes makes, shoes Places * The Cobbler, a mountain located near the head of Loch Long in Scotland * Mount Cobbler, Australia Art, entertainment and media * The Cobbler (1923 ...

by trade, Monteleone set up shop on Royal Street, then a center of commerce and banking.HistoricHotels.org
Hotel Monteleone Historic Significance Page
/ref> In 1886, Monteleone purchased a small hotel on the corner of Royal and Iberville streets. When the nearby Commercial Hotel became available for purchase, Monteleone took the opportunity to expand. Since then, Hotel Monteleone has experienced five major expansions. Thirty rooms were added in 1903. Then, in 1908, 300 more rooms were added and the hotel's name was changed from the Commercial Hotel to Hotel Monteleone. In 1913, Antonio Monteleone died, and the business passed to his son Frank, who in 1928 added 200 more rooms, a year before the

stock market crash A stock market crash is a sudden dramatic decline of stock In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especia ...

that presaged the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. One of the few family-owned hotels in the nation to survive the Depression, Hotel Monteleone remained unchanged until the fourth expansion in 1954. That year the original building was demolished, and the foundation was laid for a new building that would include guest facilities,

ballroom A ballroom or ballhall is a large room inside a building, the primary purpose of which is holding large formal parties called balls. Traditionally, most balls were held in private residences; many mansions and palaces, especially historic man ...

dining room A dining room is a room (architecture), room for eating, consuming food. In modern times it is usually adjacent to the kitchen for convenience in serving, although in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level. Historically ...

s, and

cocktail lounge Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

s. Frank Monteleone died in 1958 and was succeeded by his son, Bill. In 1964, the fifth and final major expansion saw the addition of more floors, more guest rooms, and a Sky Terrace with swimming pools and cocktail lounges. In 2011 Bill died and his son William Jr. took over. It remains one of the few long-standing, family-owned hotels in the nation.HotelMonteleone.com
Hotel History
/ref>

Literary landmark

Hotel Monteleone was a favorite of many Southern authors. References to the Hotel Monteleone and its Carousel Bar are included in Tennessee Williams' ''

The Rose Tattoo ''The Rose Tattoo'' is a three-act play written by Tennessee Williams in 1949 and 1950; after its Chicago premiere on December 29, 1950, he made further revisions to the play for its Broadway premiere on February 2, 1951, and its publication by ...

'' and ''

Orpheus Descending ''Orpheus Descending'' is a three-act play by Tennessee Williams. It was first presented on Broadway on March 17, 1957 but had only a brief run (68 performances) and modest success. It was revived on Broadway in 1989, directed by Peter Hall an ...

'', Rebecca Wells' ''

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood ''Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood'' is a 1996 novel written by Rebecca Wells. It follows the novel '' Little Altars Everywhere''. In 2005, Wells wrote ''Ya-Yas in Bloom'' and then ''The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder''. ''Divine Secret ...

'' and ''

Little Altars Everywhere ''Little Altars Everywhere'' is a 1992 short story collection by Rebecca Wells which chronicles the adventures of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood—four eccentric women—and their children, affectionately called the Petites Ya-Yas. Plot introduction Auth ...

'', Stephen Ambrose's '' Band of Brothers'', Richard Ford's ''A Piece of My Heart'', Eudora Welty's ''

A Curtain of Green ''A Curtain of Green'' was the first collection of short stories written by Eudora Welty. In these stories, Welty looks at the state of Mississippi through the eyes of its inhabitants, the common people, both black and white, and presents a realist ...

'', Gerald Clarke's ''Capote: A Biography''; Erle Stanley Gardner's ''Owls Don't Blink'' (written under the

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

A.A. Fair), Ernest Hemingway's "Night Before Battle" (published in ''

The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway ''The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigía Edition'', is a posthumous collection of Ernest Hemingway's (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) short fiction, published in 1987. It contains the classic '' First Forty-Nine Stories' ...

'') Harry Stephen Keeler's ''The Voice of the Seven Sparrows'' and John Grisham’s “The Reckoning.” Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, and

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of ...

made a point of staying at the Hotel Monteleone while visiting New Orleans. During an appearance on ''

The Tonight Show ''The Tonight Show'' is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. The show has been hosted by six comedians: Steve Allen (1954–1957), Jack Paar (1957–1962), Johnny Carson (1962–1992), Jay Leno (1992–2009 and 201 ...

'',

Truman Capote Truman Garcia Capote ( ; born Truman Streckfus Persons; September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, ...

once claimed that he was born in the Hotel Monteleone. (He wasn't; his mother lived at the hotel during her pregnancy, but she safely made it to the hospital in time for Truman's birth.)

Anne Rice Anne Rice (born Howard Allen Frances O'Brien; October 4, 1941 – December 11, 2021) was an American author of gothic fiction, erotic literature, and Christian literature. She was best known for her series of novels ''The Vampire Chronicles''. B ...

Stephen Ambrose Stephen Edward Ambrose (January 10, 1936 – October 13, 2002) was an American historian, most noted for his biographies of U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. He was a longtime professor of history at the University of New Or ...

, and

John Grisham John Ray Grisham Jr. (; born February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas) is an American novelist, lawyer and former member of the 7th district of the Mississippi House of Representatives, known for his popular legal thrillers. According to the Am ...

have also stayed at the hotel. In June 1999, the hotel was designated an official literary landmark by the Friends of the Library Association. The

Plaza A town square (or square, plaza, public square, city square, urban square, or ''piazza'') is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true geometric square, used for community gatherings. ...

and

Algonquin Hotel The Algonquin Hotel is a hotel at 59 West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. The 181-room hotel, opened in 1902, was designed by architect Goldwin Starrett for the Puritan Realty Company. The hotel has hosted numer ...

s in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

are the only other hotels in the U.S. which share this honor.

Carousel Bar

Hotel Monteleone's Carousel Piano Bar & Lounge is the only revolving bar in New Orleans. (For a few decades, there was a rotating cocktail lounge at 2 Canal Street, overlooking the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

.) The 25-seat carousel bar turns on 2,000 large steel rollers, pulled by a chain powered by a motor at a constant rate of one revolution every 15 minutes. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Carousel Bar was also the site of a popular nightclub, the Swan Room, where musicians such as

Liberace Władziu Valentino Liberace (May 16, 1919 – February 4, 1987) was an American pianist, singer, and actor. A child prodigy born in Wisconsin to parents of Italian and Polish origin, he enjoyed a career spanning four decades of concerts, recordi ...

and

Louis Prima Louis Leo Prima (December 7, 1910 – August 24, 1978) was an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, and trumpeter. While rooted in New Orleans jazz, swing music, and jump blues, Prima touched on various genres throughout his career: he forme ...

performed.HotelMonteleone.com
The Carousel Bar & Lounge History
Press release, December 4, 2008. The Carousel Bar was originally installed in 1949.

In film

*1999: ''

Double Jeopardy In jurisprudence, double jeopardy is a procedural defence (primarily in common law jurisdictions) that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same (or similar) charges following an acquittal or conviction and in rare case ...

'' – Starring Ashley Judd and Tommy Lee Jones. Filmed in lobby, front of hotel, and the Carousel Bar transformed into the Armani Shop. *2004: ''

Glory Road ''Glory Road'' is a science fantasy novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, originally serialized in ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'' (July – September 1963) and published in hardcover the same year. It was nominated for ...

'' – A Jerry Bruckheimer production. Starring Josh Lucas, Derek Luke, and Jon Voight. Filmed in lobby and also in a built set in storage area. Hotel featured as fancy hotel lobby in a different city. Conference space was set aside for extras. *2005: '' The Last Time'' – Starring Brendan Fraser and Michael Keaton. Filmed in lobby, Carousel Bar, Hunt Room Grill, Bagatelle, and Engineer. *2008: '' 12 Rounds'' – Starring John Cena. Filmed in Vieux Carre Suite (#1480), 14th-floor hallway, roof by the marquis, boiler room, garage freight elevator, lobby, and front of hotel. *2017: ''

Girls Trip ''Girls Trip'' is a 2017 American comedy film starring Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, Tiffany Haddish, and Jada Pinkett Smith. The film is directed by Malcolm D. Lee and written by Kenya Barris and Tracy Oliver, from a story by the pair and Erica R ...

References

{{Coord, 29.9542, -90.0682, region:US-LA_type:landmark, display=title French Quarter Hotels in New Orleans Historic Hotels of America