The Oldest Hotel In Louisiana: 5 Facts That Made It Famous

What Southern city is multicultural and captures the essence of charm, character, intrigue and mystery? New Orleans of course. Somehow this city has managed to maintain it's century-old vibe, embrace its unique diversity, while keeping up with the rest of the world when it comes to technology and modernization. It's old and new at the same time.

Much like one of NOLA's oldest hotels, the historic Hotel Monteleone. Built in 1886, and is operated by the same family to this day. Italian immigrant Antonio Monetelone started his families journey in the hotel business. The Sicilian cobbler was one of thousands of Italian immigrants that settled in New Orleans around the Gilded Age in the 1880s.

The Carousel Bar & Lounge at the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans was designed and decorated by Glenn Flanders, who is based in St. Louis. The bar was built in 1949 in the former Swan Room of the hotel, and was the first rotating bar in New Orleans. The bar's design includes a circular bar with 25 bar stools, a one-quarter horsepower motor that pulls the bar over rollers, and a stationary bartender in the center.

You can bet, regardless of the room you chose, that the accommodations are luxurious to say the least. On average your hotel stay is quite reasonable from $181 to $239 per night for standard King and Queen rooms,

Under Antonio Monteleone’s leadership, the hotel quickly became one of the excellent Grand Dames of New Orleans. Many of the country’s most illustrious guests soon stayed at the hotel at one point or another, which garnered it great national prestige. To address the mounting interest in the hotel, Monteleone initiated as series of expansive renovations over the next two decades that saw the addition of 330 more accommodations.

He also decided to rename the building “Hotel Monteleone” around the same time, as well. Frank Monteleone eventually took over the business following his father’s death in 1913, constructing another 200 additional guestrooms amid the New Orleans jazz craze that defined the Roaring Twenties. Frank and his family managed to successfully guide the Hotel Monteleone through the economic tumult of the Great Depression, where it emerged as one of the few independent hotels to survive the crisis.

The Monteleones began another series of extensive renovations after the World War II. In 1949 work began with the creation of the Carousel Bar & Lounge. Built inside the hotel’s former Swan Room. For obvious reasons the lounge was an instant hit for its slowly rotating bar. Later editions transformed into the merry-go-round. One of the last construction jobs was in 1964 with the addition of he Sky Terrace.

Throughout its history, Hotel Monteleone gaining worldwide success and notoriety. For more history about the NOLA Grand Dame, here five things that help to make the hotel famous.

1.) Five literary suites are named after famous authors - Ernest Hemingway, Anne Rice, Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner and John Grisham.

2.) In 2007, the hotel join the Historic Hotels of America back, in 1999 Friends of the Library Association declared the Hotel Monteleone a national literary landmark in 1999.

3.) Movies that featured the hotel: Girls Trip, Double Jeopardy, 12 Rounds, Glory Road, NCIS New Orleans, Battleground Earth

4.)  William Faulkner penned his renowned novel, The Sound and the Fury. Tennessee Williams wrote his renowned book The Rose Tattoo.

5.) In the 50s and 60s, the Carousel Bar was the site of a popular nightclub, the Swan Room, where musicians such as Liberace and Louis Prima performed. New Orleans. The 25-seat bar turns on 2000 large steel rollers, pulled by a chain powered by a one-quarter horsepower motor at a constant rate of one revolution every 15 minutes.