In honor of next week’s Tales of the Cocktail, we visit a place where many visitors have enjoyed a cocktail or two: the bar of the Columns Hotel.
The hotel’s bar area was the family dining room when the property at 3811 St. Charles Ave., built in 1883, served as the Simon Hernsheim family home. Born in New Orleans in 1839, Hernsheim made his fortune in tobacco, owning what would later be called the largest cigar factory in the country, located at Magazine and Julia Streets (now the offices of the Deutsch Kerrigan law firm).
Hernsheim’s three-story St. Charles Avenue mansion was designed in the Italianate style by noted architect Thomas Sully. In addition to its grand columns, one of the home’s most striking features is its mahogany stairwell, which rises to meet a square-domed stained glass skylight…