Hotel Monteleone
Encyclopedia
29.954243°N 90.068184°W

Hotel Monteleone is a family-owned and operated
Family business
A family business is a business in which one or more members of one or more families have a significant ownership interest and significant commitments toward the business’ overall well-being....

 hotel
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...

 located at 214 Royal Street in the French Quarter
French Quarter
The French Quarter, also known as Vieux Carré, is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. When New Orleans was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city was originally centered on the French Quarter, or the Vieux Carré as it was known then...

 of New Orleans. The hotel includes the only high-rise building in the interior French Quarter and is well known for its Carousel Piano Bar & Lounge
Carousel Piano Bar & Lounge
The Carousel Piano Bar & Lounge is the only revolving bar in New Orleans, Louisiana. The bar is inside the Hotel Monteleone and overlooks Royal Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Installed in 1949, the 25-seat circular bar turns on 2,000 large steel rollers, powered by a motor. The bar...

, a rotating bar.

Built in 1886 in the Beaux-Arts architectural style
Architectural style
Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...

 with an eclectic flair, Hotel Monteleone is a historic landmark, a member of Historic Hotels of America. The hotel has 600 guestrooms, including 50 suites, two restaurants, the Carousel Piano Bar & Lounge, shop, a heated rooftop pool, Spa Aria, an exercise facility, a business center and valet parking. The hotel also offers 25 meeting and reception rooms.

History

Antonio Monteleone arrived in New Orleans from Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

 around the year 1880. A cobbler
Shoemaking
Shoemaking is the process of making footwear. Originally, shoes were made one at a time by hand. Traditional handicraft shoemaking has now been largely superseded in volume of shoes produced by industrial mass production of footwear, but not necessarily in quality, attention to detail, or...

 by trade, Monteleone set up shop on Royal Street, then a center of commerce and banking.

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
Stock market crash
A stock market crash is a sudden dramatic decline of stock prices across a significant cross-section of a stock market, resulting in a significant loss of paper wealth. Crashes are driven by panic as much as by underlying economic factors...

 that presaged the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

.

One of the few family-owned hotels in the nation to survive the Depression, Hotel Montelone 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
Ballroom
A ballroom is a large room inside a building, the designated purpose of which is holding formal dances called balls. Traditionally, most balls were held in private residences; many mansions contain one or more ballrooms...

s, dining room
Dining room
A dining room is a room for 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...

s and cocktail lounges. Frank Monteleone died in 1958 and was succeed by his son, Bill. In 1964, the fifth and final major expansion saw the addition of more floors, guestrooms and a Sky Terrace with swimming pools and cocktail lounges.

It remains one of few longstanding, family-owned hotels in the nation.

Literary landmark

Hotel Monteleone was a favorite of many Southern authors
Southern literature
Southern literature is defined as American literature about the Southern United States or by writers from this region...

. References to the Hotel Monteleone and its Carousel Bar are included in Tennessee Williams'
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...

 The Rose Tattoo
The Rose Tattoo
- External links :*...

and Orpheus Descending
Orpheus Descending
Orpheus Descending is a play by Tennessee Williams. It was first presented on Broadway in 1957 where it enjoyed a brief run with only modest success. The play is basically a rewrite of an earlier play by Williams called Battle of Angels, which was written in 1940, but had been closed on its opening...

, Rebecca Wells'
Rebecca Wells
Rebecca Wells is an American author and theatre director, who wrote the Ya-Ya Sisterhood series of books, which includes Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Little Altars Everywhere, and Ya-Yas in Bloom.-Background:...

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

and Little Altars Everywhere
Little Altars Everywhere
Little Altars Everywhere chronicles the adventures of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood - four eccentric women - and their children, affectionately called the Petites Ya-Yas.-Plot introduction:...

, Stephen Ambrose's
Stephen Ambrose
Stephen Edward Ambrose was an American historian and biographer of U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. He was a long time professor of history at the University of New Orleans and the author of many best selling volumes of American popular history...

 Band of Brothers, Richard Ford's
Richard Ford
Richard Ford is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. His best-known works are the novel The Sportswriter and its sequels, Independence Day and The Lay of the Land, and the short story collection Rock Springs, which contains several widely anthologized stories.-Early...

 A Piece of My Heart
A Piece of My Heart
Piece of My Heart is the 18th novel by crime-writer Peter Robinson, published in 2006 and is 16th in the multi award-winning Inspector Alan Banks series.-Plot summary:Piece of My Heart is the 16th Inspector Banks novel by Peter Robinson...

, Eudora Welty's
Eudora Welty
Eudora Alice Welty was an American author of short stories and novels about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards. She was the first living author to have her works published...

 A Curtain of Green
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 realistic view of the racial relations that existed at the time...

, Gerald Clarke's
Gerald Clarke
Gerald B. Clarke was the principal secretary to the Rhodesian Cabinet throughout the existence of the Rhodesian Front Government...

 Capote: A Biography; Erle Stanley Gardner's
Erle Stanley Gardner
Erle Stanley Gardner was an American lawyer and author of detective stories, best known for the Perry Mason series, he also published under the pseudonyms A.A. Fair, Kyle Corning, Charles M. Green, Carleton Kendrake, Charles J...

 Owls Don't Blink (written under the pen name
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...

 A.A. Fair), Ernest Hemingway's
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...

 "Night Before Battle" (published in The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
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 short fiction, published in 1987...

), and Harry Stephen Keeler's
Harry Stephen Keeler
Harry Stephen Keeler was a prolific but little-known American author.- Biography :Born in Chicago in 1890, Keeler spent his childhood exclusively in this city, which was so beloved by the author that a large number of his works took place in and around it...

 The Voice of the Seven Sparrows.

Hemingway, Williams, and William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...

 always stayed at Hotel Monteleone while staying in New Orleans. During an appearance on The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...

, Truman Capote
Truman Capote
Truman Streckfus Persons , known as Truman Capote , was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At...

 once claimed that he was born in 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
Anne Rice is a best-selling Southern American author of metaphysical gothic fiction, Christian literature and erotica from New Orleans, Louisiana. Her books have sold nearly 100 million copies, making her one of the most widely read authors in modern history...

, Stephen Ambrose
Stephen Ambrose
Stephen Edward Ambrose was an American historian and biographer of U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. He was a long time professor of history at the University of New Orleans and the author of many best selling volumes of American popular history...

 and John Grisham
John Grisham
John Ray Grisham, Jr. is an American lawyer and author, best known for his popular legal thrillers.John Grisham graduated from Mississippi State University before attending the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981 and practiced criminal law for about a decade...

 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 Hotel
Plaza Hotel
The Plaza Hotel in New York City is a landmark 20-story luxury hotel with a height of and length of that occupies the west side of Grand Army Plaza, from which it derives its name, and extends along Central Park South in Manhattan. Fifth Avenue extends along the east side of Grand Army Plaza...

 and Algonquin Hotel
Algonquin Hotel
The Algonquin Hotel is a historic hotel located at 59 West 44th Street in Manhattan . The hotel has been designated as a New York City Historic Landmark....

 in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 are the only other hotels in the United States that share this honor.

Carousel Bar

Hotel Monteleone's Carousel Piano Bar & Lounge
Carousel Piano Bar & Lounge
The Carousel Piano Bar & Lounge is the only revolving bar in New Orleans, Louisiana. The bar is inside the Hotel Monteleone and overlooks Royal Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Installed in 1949, the 25-seat circular bar turns on 2,000 large steel rollers, powered by a motor. The bar...

 is the only revolving bar in New Orleans. The 25-seat carousel bar turns on 2,000 large steel rollers, pulled by a chain powered by a one-quarter horsepower 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
Liberace
Wladziu Valentino Liberace , best known simply as Liberace, was a famous American pianist and vocalist.In a career that spanned four decades of concerts, recordings, motion pictures, television and endorsements, Liberace became world-renowned...

 and Louis Prima
Louis Prima
Louis Prima was a Sicilian American singer, actor, songwriter, and trumpeter. Prima rode the musical trends of his time, starting with his seven-piece New Orleans style jazz band in the 1920s, then successively leading a swing combo in the 1930s, a big band in the 1940s, a Vegas lounge act in the...

performed. The Carousel Bar celebrated its 60th anniversary in July 2009, having been originally installed in 1949.

In film

  • 1999

"Double Jeopardy" – Starring Ashley Judd and Tommy Lee Jones. Filmed in Lobby, front of hotel and the Carousel Bar transformed into the Armani Shop.
  • September 2004

"Glory Road" – A Jerry Bruckheimer production. Starring Josh Lucas, Derek Luke and Jon Voight. Filmed in Lobby and also built set in storage area. Hotel featured as fancy hotel lobby in a different city. Conference space was set aside for extras.
  • September 2005

"The Last Time" – Starring Brendan Fraser and Michael Keaton. Filmed in Lobby, Carousel Bar, Hunt Room Grill, Bagatelle and Engineer.
  • February 2005

"Retirement" – Starring Peter Faulk. Filmed in hotel’s restaurant, the Hunt Room Grill.
  • March 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.
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