The French Quarter has its charms. These three hotels offer something different: the residential quiet of the oak-lined avenues, front porches built for sitting, and pools that become the social center of the property by midafternoon. Each one occupies a 19th-century building that tells a different story about how this city was built.
Hotel Saint Vincent – 1507 Magazine St., Lower Garden District
We covered Hotel Saint Vincent in depth earlier in this guide, but it earns its place here for a specific reason: the courtyard pool. It’s surrounded by pink and white striped cabanas, palm trees, and an original Virgin Mary grotto that somehow makes the whole scene more New Orleans rather than less. The pool deck pulls from the energy of the Italian Riviera, the 1861 orphanage walls hold it all together, and the contrast between the two is something you don’t find in purpose-built boutique hotels.
San Lorenzo handles coastal Italian in the former Peychaud Bitters factory next door, and the Elizabeth Street Café handles breakfast and Vietnamese fare through the day. The hotel is at its best in the late afternoon when the courtyard fills up, and the light drops behind the Magazine Street roofline. Book directly at saintvincentnola.com.
The Chloe – 4125 St. Charles Ave., Uptown
Robert LeBlanc opened The Chloe in October 2020 inside a 1891 mansion designed by architect Thomas Sully, with interior design by Sara Ruffin Costello, a New Orleans native who treated the building like a glamorous family home rather than a hotel project. The result is fourteen rooms with record players stocked with local vinyl, original millwork, and a mahogany bar built by a local woodworker.
The saltwater pool behind the mansion sits on a Haitian-inspired limestone and travertine checkerboard terrace, lined with Meyer lemon trees and pink loungers. The pool bar serves frozen cocktails and mezcal selections. The front porch on St. Charles, wide and shaded and directly on the streetcar line, is where the hotel’s social life really happens: locals and guests mixing over bloody marias and cracklins while the avenue traffic rolls past. Condé Nast Traveler named it one of the best hotels in New Orleans.
The Columns – 3811 St. Charles Ave., Uptown
Built in 1883 as an Italianate private home by architect Thomas Sully and operating as a hotel since 1980, The Columns is the kind of place that becomes a landmark before anyone decides to make it one. The original mahogany stairwell, domed stained-glass skylight, and 10-to-15-foot ceilings in every room survived the transition from mansion to boardinghouse to hotel intact, and a renovation in 2020 added modern theatrical touches without disturbing what made it worth preserving…