Nicole Franzen for Design Hotels
Divesting itself of a seedy past, The Drifter is a hiply reimagined motel.
As New Orleans reaches its tricentennial, there are dozens of hotels to choose from that reflect the Big Easy’s rich history while offering modern amenities that demonstrate creativity far beyond terrycloth robes and overpriced mini bars. Here are four worthy spots to crash this Carnival and beyond.
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Patrick Niddrie
Private rooms are available at The Quisby, but sharing is half the fun at the upscale hostel.
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Patrick Niddrie
Hostels offer a pared-down travel experience, but The Quisby does come with its frills.
The Quisby
The looming Audubon Hotel building on St. Charles Avenue was built in 1924 with the intent of housing the Mississippi riverboat captains and crew members who were an integral part of the Crescent City’s economy at that point in time. According to Seale Paterson in St. Charles Avenue Magazine, “Perhaps the most distinguished regular resident of the Audubon was a dog from Chicago named Jeff, who wintered at the Audubon in the late 1930s thanks to his $30,000 trust fund.” Seale said that after developing nearsightedness, Jeff was fitted with “…a pair of specially made doggy glasses, adding even more distinction to one of the Audubon’s most well-behaved guests.”
As the city grew into the twenty-first century, the Audubon Hotel was eventually left vacant and derelict. Now, the historic building has been reborn as an entirely different, distinctly modern type of lodging: a high-end hostel, or perhaps more aptly, “poshtel”.
The word “hostel” has less-than-pleasant connotations for most. Perhaps it conjures images of bunker-esque lodging, where well-traveled but not well-showered strangers are packed into less-than-clean rooms, and stolen personal items are guaranteed with the stay. But there’s great news for those looking to visit New Orleans on a budget: This new, upscale hostel in the Lower Garden District offers affordable, comfortable communal lodging, redefining the commonly-accepted image of the hostel into a place that’s few-frills but comfortable and fun. According to the Quisby website, “[f]or half the price of a hotel, you get: 24-hour front desk, free breakfast, a ridiculously comfortable bed, blazing fast wifi (for making friends back home jealous), and a bar downstairs for making new friends.”
While a stay at the Quisby may not be a luxury hotel experience, it provides travelers with everything necessary to have a great time in the Big Easy, including a parade route location on St. Charles Avenue; the hotel is also within walking distance to local drinking spots like Avenue Pub and Circle Bar as well as the WWII and Ogden Museums, and it’s less than a mile from the French Quarter. Shared rooms offer a fun communal experience and an opportunity to connect with other like-minded travelers, but private rooms and female-only shared rooms are also available. Rates: $20 for a shared room of six — $115 a night for a private room. thequisby.com.
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Nicole Franzen for Design Hotels
Cloth roses, cut from designer clothes by New Orleans artist Carlton Scott Sturgill, sprawl across the wall of the Drifter's bar.
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Nicole Franzen for Design Hotels
This single king guestroom is cozy with mid-century touches.
The Drifter
If there is a line between “retro” and “historic,” The Drifter deftly tiptoes along it.
More than a decade before Eisenhower’s interstate system would forever change the way people came and went from New Orleans, travelers would make their way into the city on Highway 61. In the 1950s and ‘60s, “The Blues Highway” was dotted with motels; popular with visitors because of proximity to the French Quarter and downtown, and popular with locals because of their swimming pools and lobby lounges. When the interstate was completed in the mid-1970s, traffic to the area began to dwindle, and by the 1980s the strip of motels along Highway 61 became less popular for excited out-of-towners and more of a destination for those seeking an unassuming and inexpensive location to indulge in a variety of vices. Hourly rates were offered commonly, as was the case with the Rose Inn: known as the Crescent Motel during its glory days as a new motel in a happening area after its completion in ’56, the Rose followed the path of its neighbors in becoming more associated with seediness than with hospitality. In 2016, it was purchased by the current owners and transformed into The Drifter.
If there is a line between “retro” and “historic,” The Drifter deftly tiptoes along it. The property could easily be the set of a Tarantino film—its architecture is distinctly 1950s, but updated design choices are unmistakably contemporary. “The overall vision of The Drifter in New Orleans is to provide a well-designed sanctuary space for open and like-minded locals as well as global explorers—all seeking a destination where they can feel a sense of nostalgia and be treated as individuals,” said co-founder Jayson Seidman. Amenities at the hiply reimagined space include a cocktail bar, a coffee shop, a rotating cast of food trucks and pop-up kitchens representing a wide range of global flavors, a swimming pool that is heated in the few cooler months New Orleans sees, and a poolside bar with private courtyard space. Locals looking to enjoy the updated-yet-nostalgic scenery and swimming pool can join “Swim Club,” which allows members to bring a guest for a monthly membership fee. Of course, guests need the means of posting their picturesque surroundings to Instagram and other social media platforms, so free WiFi is provided, too. Rates: $113–$298. thedrifterhotel.com.
Courtesy of Bourbon Orleans Hotel — New Orleans Hotel Collection
A historic ballroom and heady champagne cocktails are just the beginning of the luxury afforded to guests at the Bourbon Orleans.
The Bourbon Orleans
Much like its city and those who call that city home, the history of the Bourbon Orleans Hotel sways dramatically from vice to virtue, to its more neutral ground today. The location at Bourbon and Orleans first opened as the Theatre d’Orleans in 1815, only to have its grandeur snuffed out within a year by arson. When entrepreneur John Davis had it rebuilt, he included a grand ballroom called the Salle d’Orleans. Widely enjoyed by Creole society, the Salle d’Orleans was known for hosting unfortunate but common events in 19th century New Orleans known as Quadroon Balls. Wealthy white men would flock to the ballroom to meet mixed-race women escorted and advised by their mothers in the hopes of finding a “plaçage,” a role as a common-law wife, of sorts, to provide him companionship in exchange for a place to live and financial security.
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The daughter of a free woman of color and an affluent Frenchman, Henriette Delille was escorted by her mother to the Salle d’Orleans with the intent of finding a suitor and entering into a plaçage contract. Having no desire to follow her mother’s footsteps as a plaçée, Delille instead formed the Sisters of the Holy Family, the first Catholic holy order for women of color, who would work to evangelize their community as well as fight for women’s rights. In 1881, they purchased the old Orleans Ballroom, and brought the building from its unsavory past into a new era of holiness, opening the first Catholic school for girls of color in New Orleans, St. Mary’s Academy.
It wasn’t until the 1960s that the holy order and the school both outgrew the location, and the superior mother sold the building to the Bourbon Kings Hotel Corporation. The group then completed a five-million dollar renovation of the property, including replacing the former outdoor auditorium with a saltwater pool and fully restoring the Orleans Ballroom to its former glory (exempting, of course, the questionable events that once took place there).
Today, amenities offered at the Bourbon Orleans expand far beyond the grand ballroom of its past, though the beautifully renovated ballroom, too, is available for events (In fact, former resident St. Mary’s Academy recently held a reception in the space). Each room is equipped with 42” flat-screen TVs, pillow-top beds, iPhone docking stations, and wired or wireless internet. All guests at the hotel receive a complimentary drink upon check-in, as well as a complimentary ghost tour that emphasizes the seventeen in-house phantoms of the Bourbon Orleans, led by the hotel’s house historian.
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Proximity to the famed Bourbon O Bar just downstairs provides another benefit, offering live jazz music nightly and some of the finest craft cocktails available on a street otherwise saturated with hurricanes and hand grenades mixed with well liquor and sugary mixes in massive batches. Bar Director Cheryl Charming, who is known for publishing more books on cocktails and bartending than any other writer in America, brilliantly presents New Orleans’ classic cocktails, while also literally and figuratively keeping it fresh with creative specials and housemade juices and purees. She’s even invented special six-minute cocktail shakers for the perfectly foamy gin fizz and a high-end answer to the famed Bourbon Street souvenir cups: a massive gold insulated champagne bottle with a neckstrap called the “Midas Cup,” filled with a dangerously delicious blend of champagne, house-made strawberry puree, Reyka Vodka, and pineapple juice. Rates: They vary depending on time of year (and are higher, for example, around Mardi Gras), but generally range from $159 for a room to $409 for a suite. bourbonorleans.com.
The Fleur de Lis Mansion
Like most things in Louisiana, the area of the Garden District in which the Fleur de Lis Mansion is situated today was at one point a plantation. Specifically, it was a plantation owned by the Jesuits, until Thomas Saulet and his family seized a large portion between what are today Calliope and Race Streets. Realizing that the potential profit from selling the land outweighed the earnings from the farm, Saulet sold off most of the property; the new neighborhood became regarded as the Faubourg Saulet. However Saulet’s endeavor into real estate was cut short when he died fighting the British under Andrew Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. Not long thereafter, his family would commission architects to build two Greek Revival style townhouses on their remaining land. One of those townhouses was demolished, the other has been transformed into the Fleur de Lis Mansion: a bed and breakfast as modern and fun as its location is historic.
When it comes to amenities, the owners of the Fleur de Lis truly thought of everything, including the features necessary for the perfect Mardi Gras celebration. Complimentary wine social hour, a TV lounge, a Mardi Gras dining room, a ten-person hot tub, outdoor showers, and even a private party bus is available for the adventurous revelers. Adventurous is no exaggeration, either: the bus comes equipped with a metal pole for those needing an outlet for their wild side that inevitably makes an appearance after a few cocktails. Rates: Range from the Hollywood Bungalow for $119 to the entire mansion for $1,840. fleurdelismansion.com.
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