Historic Louisiana

including ones, such as the St. Charles, in
the American sector of town on the other
side of Canal Street. With a facade along St.
Louis Street reminiscent of the Rue de
Rivoli in Paris, the interior housed a huge
rotunda, which served as the city’s principal
auction room or exchange. Real estate,
furniture and possessions, even slaves went
to the highest bidder. The bars and restaurants
welcomed locals and visitors alike to
marvel at the ceiling painted by artist
Dominico Canova and to nibble on the
complimentary hors d’oeuvres available at
the bar. Thus began the tradition of offering
free lunch to bar patrons. The St. Louis
Hotel was popular, and also resilient.
When a fire destroyed the building a few
years after its opening, it was quickly
rebuilt and was soon hosting Mardi Gras
balls, even before that festival became the
public event it is today.
When New Orleans fell to the Union
Army in 1862 the St. Louis became a military
hospital, and during the Reconstruction
era following the Civil War the St. Louis figured
in armed struggles as Federal forces
finally left. Afterwards, the St. Louis Hotel
fell upon hard times: the building was a
desolate ruin when English author John
Galsworthy visited in 1912 and described a
horse wandering through the crumbling
rooms. By the 1940s that hotel was gone,
and a lumberyard occupied the property.
The visionary who foresaw the glorious
future of a hotel on that spot was Edgar Stern,
a New Orleans businessman who, with his
wife Edith, a Sears Roebuck heiress, would
leave New Orleans remarkably improved by
personal involvement. Stern’s executive assistant
Lester Kabacoff, who would also leave his
mark on the city, was the man who ably coordinated
the hotel’s construction and affiliation
with the Hotel Corporation of America. In a
graceful salute to its past, the hotel was constructed
to echo the appearance of the old St.
Louis Hotel. On the Chartres Street side today
you will see part of the original walls, with
faint sign painting remaining.
Opening in 1960, the Royal Orleans Hotel
as designed by architects Arthur Q. Davis
and Sam Wilson, was a success. Soon a
mansard roof and rooms were added. So legendary
did the hotel become that author
Arthur Hailey was in residence there and
plied the staff with questions while he wrote
his novel “Hotel.” When it became a movie,
the cast was housed there.
Now known as the Omni Royal Orleans,
this grande dame of the French Quarter still
welcomes visitors with the same panache and
grace as its remote ancestor the St. Louis. The
past still lives in New Orleans!
✧
Below: The lobby of the Omni Royal
Orleans presents an artful mélange of
nineteenth century artifacts and the essence
of Creole grace.
SHARING THE HERITAGE
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