Trifter

This past summer saw the grand re-opening of one of New Orleans’ finest hotels, and this particular home-away-from-home also happens to be one of the oldest still in operation today. What most people of this current era are not aware of, however, is where it all began. Though some of the “Big Easy’s” elder citizens will gladly – and affectionately – refer to the 14-storey palatial structure as the Roosevelt (with their nostalgia ignited to see it re-open as such), there is a deep history pre-dating this early tenure named in President Theodore’s honor that leaves many locals and fascinated tourists alike both surprised and intrigued to learn that it began even earlier than they initially presumed.

Louis Grunewald

I inherited the honor of growing up with the hotel in one way or another, you could say. Its original owner happens to have been my great-great-great grandfather, Louis Grunewald. My family was in New Orleans for five generations before I was born, so moving up to North Carolina when I was barely three was not about to shake away any influence the Crescent City would have left me. My parents and grandmother made sure it never would, as they reminisced about many flourishing years there since the gilded age – all rhetoric I was never forced to listen to, but couldn’t help but hear. And if they didn’t tell any stories, the furniture, scrapbooks, and other heirlooms overflowing every room in our house sure did. To this day I am not used to hearing New Orleans terminology (most notably “Jambalaya” and the city’s own name) pronounced with southern accents, nor would I ever see New Orleans as New Orleans without the vestiges of Louis Grunewald’s prestige scattered about here and there.

Long before Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang saw the silver screen (or even saw paper for that matter), Louis Grunewald’s story was literally one of a man who grew the the roses of success from the ashes of disaster, both literally and figuratively. As owner of New Orleans’ largest music firm prior to materializing any interest he may have had in a hotel, Louis owned Grunewald Hall, a sumptuous, multi-faced complex which allegedly boasted “most perfect acoustics of any concert hall in America.” In addition to hosting many a musical and theatrical production, the hall was also a common ambiance for ceremonial and social events throughout its years of service. The hotel most recently dubbed the Roosevelt-Waldorf was originally conceived as a rear extension to Grunewald Hall, but when the hall was destroyed by fire in 1892, it was instead re-built as the then-six story Hotel Grunewald a year later, just before Christmas of 1893.

Grunewald Hall: The Hotel Was Originally Conceived as a Rear Extension to This Building

The anticipation of the holidays in New Orleans was double. After Christmas, Mardi Gras would be dawning in only a few short months. Louis had promised his new hotel – all of 200 delicately decorated rooms worth – would be “in full readiness for the Carnival of 1894.” He accomplished his goal and his hotel was an immediate success. The guest rooms were reached by corridors lined with wall sconces and trimmed with strings of crystal beads, which also served as an elegant accent to the many overhead lights, hanging like ornate necklaces from the center to the edges of the circular fixtures. The carpeted floors were equally majestic, and provided a lavish and colorful surface for the extravagant furniture.

The original Hotel Grunewald: 6 Stories, 200 Rooms

Before long, the hotel was ready for expansion. A new 14-storey, 400-room annex (which is now the main building) was added on University Place and was unveiled to the public by a bountiful New Years’ celebration at the flash of midnight of 1908. Its cost was an unthinkable $2.5 million dollars, which all but guaranteed that its grandeur would be worth seeing.

14-Storey, 600-Room Annex Added in 1908

Indeed, it was a beauty. Transversing the entire block from its origin on University to Barrone Street, was the lobby that would, in the years to come, become a legend in and of itself. The extraordinary décor featured gilded colonnades, posh flooring in the shape of a series of intricate tile mosaics, walls covered in French, African, and Italian marble, and detailed cornices gracing the thirty-foot ceilings. It was a phenomenal sight, described by author Garry Boulard as, “a palace gleaming out of the otherwise dormant Sahara of the Deep South.” Of course, this was only the beginning, and everything was done to be sure that this awe-inspiring first impression would also be a final one.

Grand Marble Staircase

Colonnade In Block-Long Lobby

For Louis Grunewald, this meant extending the distinct dream-world charm all the way to the basement, where lay perhaps the hotel’s most fascinating feature. The Cave, sporting a design modeled after the world-famous Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, is reputed to have been America’s first night club, and it was most certainly America’s most imaginative. The cavernous underground supper club lived up to its name with the expert use of over 700,000 pounds of plaster and cement to transform the conduits and beams into stalagmites, stalactites and waterfalls. Life-sized naked stucco nymphs were also strategically placed throughout the premises, which were accented in a most lively fashion each night by entertaining floor shoes, Dixieland bands, and beautifully dressed showgirls. The Cave was a popular night spot immediately following its opening, and remained so until about 1930, shortly before it would be replaced by the Blue Room, currently located directly above.

America’s First Night Club, The Cave

Louis’s youngest son Theodore would inherit the hotel after Louis’s death in 1915, and the business continued to flourish under Theodore’s management until health problems forced him to sell in 1923. The end of the Grunewald era would not be in vain, however. Before the building was sold and handed over, numerous visitors marveled over the breathtaking interior flowing through the countless rooms, all meticulously designed: there was a ladies’ tea room, a gentlemans’ cafe, formal and private dining rooms, a promenade on the second floor, and the Grunewald Symphony Orchestra offering free morning musicals every week on the twelfth floor. And with a family name meaning “green forest,” no hotel would be complete without a restaurant that brought the wilderness indoors, aptly named the “Forest Grill.” The exterior was equally impressive. Scrupulous facade details covered the massive masonry structure in German Baroque style.

Gentleman’s Cafe

The Forest Grill

Main Dining Room

When the new owners took over, they partially demolished the original building, re-opening the hotel in 1925 with the larger, more elaborate structure as the main entrance. History also has it that the anti-German movement that swept across the city during the first world war still ran deep, compelling them to change the hotel’s name. It would now begin a new life as the Roosevelt, and later the Fairmont.

There are certain aspects of the hotel’s German origins, however, that could not be changed nor substituted. Though the Grunewald name that welcomed guests right above the main entrance’s awning had been cemented over, the family initial remained within the marble walls and above various doors through it all. This was one of the many factoids recited to me frequently while growing up, and one my parents had been back to see several times since our move to North Carolina (only to find out that the Grunewald name and two dollars would only get them a cup of coffee!). It was always good news to know the hotel did not appear to have lost much of its charm since Louis Grunewald’s vision had been twice handed over so many years ago.

The Family Initial, Which To This Day Remains in the Walls

This is why Hurricane Katrina was much harder on me than on your average New Orleans enthusiast… and contrary to popular belief, I am no New Orleans enthusiast – just a genealogy enthusiast whose family genesis – at least in this country – happens to be in New Orleans. Just the prospect of seeing the relics of my history washed away indefinitely or subject to morbid neglect or demolition nearly killed me. The way I felt it, it wasn’t a beloved city that was at stake. It was a deep extension of who I was. Even the most ardent New Orleans native could not have experienced the vortex of emotions I did.

When the Fairmont chain lacked the funds to repair the damages, forcing them to sell what was once my family’s pride and joy once more, my father developed a correspondence with the new owner who was to spend $100 million dollars restoring it into part of Hilton’s Waldorf Astoria collection. He was even able to convince the owner that our family was entitled to the G’s in the walls should he decide to do away with them. No such plans were made, thankfully, due either to his own desire to preserve the building’s history or to the city’s strict regulations that prohibited such drastic changes to historical structures. Either way, they were the highlight of the private tour my dad received upon his long-awaited return to New Orleans, about six months prior to the hotel’s re-opening.

Renovation of the Lobby

It was to re-open as the Roosevelt-Waldorf, we were told. Something my dad would gently refute, feeling as though the Grunewald-Waldorf was a better embodiment of what the hotel’s history really stood for. I found myself, however, relieved that bringing the Grunewald name back to the title just wasn’t in the cards. It just could never be the Grunewald without Louis’s family in charge, or without The Cave, or the Grunewald Symphony Orchestra…

Sure, this would mean that perhaps more visitors would be lured into wrongly believing it all began as the Roosevelt, but the renovation process revealed otherwise, when they uncovered the old tile mosaics in the lobby along with numerous wall and ceiling cornices throughout the hotel’s expanse, which they decided to restore after they’d been hidden since as early the Grunewald ownership came to an end in 1923. This will definitely go down as one of the biggest regrets of my life – that I was unable to be present to see the buried treasure of my great-great-great grandfather and his son unveiled before my very eyes.

I also advise you to look right above your head as you enter, now that you know the name that is once again inscribed high above the “Roosevelt” awing really does have a place there, and can be credited for many of the hotel’s most beloved attributes all the way down to the building itself.

This Was Then

This Is Now (Image Source)

That name first appeared in the hotel’s exterior in the wake of a fire. Its re-appearance occurred in the wake of a violent storm. The Roosevelt-Waldorf is a symbol of the American Dream, of prosperity, and of course of old New Orleans charm, as well as a reminder that the ashes of disaster really do grow the roses of success. I never saw the profound truth of that statement until I knew the full story of this very special Crescent City landmark.

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