Monterleone’s Literary Heritage

Declared a National Literary Landmark by the Friends of the Library Association in 1999, the Hotel Monteleone opened in 1886 when Antonio Monteleone, a Sicilian-born shoemaker, purchased the business Hotel, this hotel has 64 rooms and is located on the corner of Royal and Iberia Streets. In the late nineteenth century, Royal Street was the commercial and banking center of New Orleans, and the newly renamed Monteleone Hotel became an instant success among the city's visitors.

The hotel grew so rapidly that in 1908 Monteleone had to rebuild and expand the hotel at a cost of $260,000. Since opening, the Monteleone has expanded five times, including expanding to its lounge and opening the legendary Carousel Bar in 1954.

Over the years, the Carousel Bar has attracted tourists and locals alike, including many famous authors. In fact, the Monteleone Hotel is the setting for more than 173 stories and novels. Famous writers who stayed at Monteleone include William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Sherwood Anderson, Lyle Saxon, Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, and Eudora Welty and Anne Rice. Capote often boasted that he was born in Monteleone. In fact, his parents were guests when his mother went into labor. They arrived at Touro Hospital just in time.

In the literary world, however, the Hotel Monteleone was not always a happy hour venue. In 1942, New Orleans-born author and Federal Writers Project employee Innis Patterson Truman jumped to his death from the 12th floor of a hotel. Lyle Saxon described her death in a letter.

Just a few famous works include Tennessee Williams' "The Rose Tattoo and Orpheus Descends" set in a hotel or carousel bar, Rebecca Wells's "Ya Sister Ya's Sacred Secrets" and "Little Altars Everywhere", Stephen Ambrose's "Band of Brothers", Richard Ford is a piece of my heart and Eudora Welty is "The Green Curtain" , "Capote: A Biography" by Gerald Clark; "The Owl Doesn't Blink" by Earl Stanley Gardner (pseudonym A.A. Fair), "The Night Before the War" by Ernest Hemingway , The Voice of the Seven Sparrows by Harry Stephen Keeler. Guests can stay in suites named after famous authors such as Capote, Hemingway and Williams