The original super dome: The first incarnation of the St Charles Hotel
Icon, but not forgotten: A history of the St Charles Hotel
Paul Oswell
“Set the St. Charles down in St. Petersburg and you would think it a palace; in Boston, you would christen it a college; and in London, it would marvelously remind you of an exchange; in New Orleans, it is all three.”
Oakey Hall, 1840
The image of New Orleans isn't one that's tied to the visualization of a specific building. St. Louis Cathedral comes close, or maybe the Superdome, but there’s no Empire State Building or White House that looms large. This wasn’t always the case, though, and for a long time, the St. Charles Hotel was that structure embodying the city, reflecting its shifting fortunes and coming back from tragedy at least twice.
The St. Charles was borne from the sense of rivalry that was growing in a divided city in the early nineteenth century. The first building of any real note to be constructed above Canal Street, it sent a bold message to the Creole Vieux Carré - that the Fauborg St. Marie (aka the Second Municipality or the American Sector) was where the future of the Crescent City lay.
The grand building cost $800,000 (around $25 million in today’s money) and opened on February 22, 1837, coinciding with the birthday of George Washington. A grand ball celebrated this milestone achievement and the St. Charles’ reputation didn’t take long to spread.
The quote at the top of the page is from the American politician, lawyer and writer Oakey Hall. Hall was no slack-jawed hayseed—he was mayor of New York and a well-traveled, educated gentleman. His reaction reflects just how flush these times really were in New Orleans, the city having many amenities that weren't even around in Manhattan yet. Writer James Silk Buckingham called the St. Charles, “Undoubtedly the largest, handsomest and most impressive hotel in the world.”
Lafcadio Hearn was also a fan: “The new hotel created quite a sensation, and New Orleans was given the credit of being the most enterprising - it was already recognized as the most aristocratic - city in the United States. It must be remembered that this was before the Americans had become a hotel-building people. The St. Charles was the first of the great hotels of the United States and it was some time before it found a rival (in the Astor House of New York).”
The first St. Charles hotel came to a dramatic demise. One night in January 1851, the hotel was full to the brim, housing some eight hundred guests, many of whom were in the building at 11pm. It was at this time that the upper part of the hotel caught on fire. Investigations later would suggest a defective chimney or careless workmen. Nevertheless, the flames raged, and while—miraculously—the guests were evacuated without casualty, the general incompetence of the fire service meant that the damage was much more severe than it might otherwise have been. The fire, according to Hearn, “lit up the entire city” and spread to neighboring blocks, destroying churches, houses and public buildings.
This didn’t deter an immediate plan of action - it’s hard to lord it over anyone from the ashes, after all - and in 1852, the second St. Charles Hotel stood on the same spot. The new model had a similar style as the original, though its most distinctive feature—the domed copula—was gone forever.
In the late 1850s, the hotel was still a sophisticated place for high society to congregate. In an 1860 book, Lillian Foster describes the heady lives of the 'ladies who lunched' in the mid-nineteenth century. Status anxiety was just as prevalent then as it is now: “At dinner, served in the early afternoon,” she says, “is revealed the ambition, the ostentation, the panting struggle for superiority in mere external experience, which is the essence of the life of a fashionable woman.”
Dinner. Coffee. Siesta. Dress for the opera. Opera. Ball. For ladies “as elegantly gowned” as those in Paris, life was a relentless treadmill of luxury…hence all that panting, presumably. But the good times, to borrow a cliche, couldn’t last. The ogre of the Civil War was lumbering into view, and the hotel would have a front row seat. Over the coming years, many of the campaigns and planning meetings would take place within its walls.
The manager at the time, Mr. Hildreth, was a Northerner. In May 1862, General Butler sent word that he and his Confederate troops were to arrive in the city and were to take up accommodations in the hotel. Mr. Hildreth refused, and a skirmish broke out. Butler and his men broke into the hotel and then eventually took control of the entire building, opening it up as a boardinghouse for officers for the whole of the war. Confederate soldiers were treated to fine accommodations on their return, housed at the St. Charles. What these returning soldiers didn’t have too much of, though, was ready money, and the hotel racked up $30,000 ($800,000) worth of bills that were never settled.
A short boom period followed until around 1868, but hard times lay ahead. In 1878, the hotel underwent extensive repairs, but the fate of the second St. Charles Hotel was well signposted. As John Kendall tells it in his 1922 History of New Orleans: “A serious fire in 1876 did extensive damage to the hotel; another on October 3, 1880, when damage estimated at $25,000 was done; and finally, on April 28, 1894, the building was entirely consumed. It is rather a remarkable fact that only in the last fire was there any known loss of life. In 1851, several people were slightly injured. In the last fire, however, four persons perished, and a number were more or less slightly injured. The present building was erected immediately after the fire.”
The “present building” - St Charles III - was up and running in 1895 and was built in a Beaux Arts style rather than Greek Revival. The hotel business was getting competitive in New Orleans as the twentieth century advanced, and the St. Charles consolidated its luxury amenities, a step that didn’t go unnoticed in the 1902 guide to New Orleans published by the Honorable James S. Zacharie:
“The St. Charles will be one of the largest and finest houses in the country, with accommodations for more than a thousand guests. It is fireproof, steam-heated and lighted throughout with electricity. The drinking water is filtered, distilled and aerated, and the ice made from it on the premises. The Turkish and Russian Baths are of marble, with every modern convenience for comfort and luxury, and with experienced massage operators, chiropodists and manicurists. The Hotel is modern, first-class and kept up to the highest standard in all departments.”
In 1912, the hotel embarked on a national marketing campaign that actually coined a nickname for New Orleans. It was at this time that the St Charles began to bill New Orleans as ‘The City That Care Forgot” a nicely ambiguous turn of phrase that soon became subsumed in the city’s lexicon. The Daily Picayune ran a four-column advert that read: “New Orleans. The city that care forgot. The St Charles. The center of the city’s hotel life.” This campaign went national, backed up with a souvenir photo booklet, The City That Care Forgot, which by 1917 had reached its third edition.
The hotel maintained its prestige for much of the first half of the twentieth century, still managing to attract celebrities, politicians, royalty and heads of state. A slow deterioration from around 1950 was noticeable. Even a takeover by the Sheraton Hotel Group in 1959 did little to halt the decline. At this time, the hotel had a tiki bar called the Outrigger, with “authentic” Polynesian décor and exotic drinks, which operated alongside the longstanding Café de Paris. These outlets did little to improve custom, and Sheraton sold the property in 1965.
The third incarnation of this grand old hotel, which had survived so much for so long, finally gave up the ghost in 1974, closing its doors and facing demolition for the final time. Standing in its place, at the address 201 St. Charles Avenue, is now the 53-storey Place St. Charles.
MODERN-DAY NEW ORLEANS' HOTEL REVIEWS!
Paul Oswell
“Set the St. Charles down in St. Petersburg and you would think it a palace; in Boston, you would christen it a college; and in London, it would marvelously remind you of an exchange; in New Orleans, it is all three.”
Oakey Hall, 1840
The image of New Orleans isn't one that's tied to the visualization of a specific building. St. Louis Cathedral comes close, or maybe the Superdome, but there’s no Empire State Building or White House that looms large. This wasn’t always the case, though, and for a long time, the St. Charles Hotel was that structure embodying the city, reflecting its shifting fortunes and coming back from tragedy at least twice.
The St. Charles was borne from the sense of rivalry that was growing in a divided city in the early nineteenth century. The first building of any real note to be constructed above Canal Street, it sent a bold message to the Creole Vieux Carré - that the Fauborg St. Marie (aka the Second Municipality or the American Sector) was where the future of the Crescent City lay.
The grand building cost $800,000 (around $25 million in today’s money) and opened on February 22, 1837, coinciding with the birthday of George Washington. A grand ball celebrated this milestone achievement and the St. Charles’ reputation didn’t take long to spread.
The quote at the top of the page is from the American politician, lawyer and writer Oakey Hall. Hall was no slack-jawed hayseed—he was mayor of New York and a well-traveled, educated gentleman. His reaction reflects just how flush these times really were in New Orleans, the city having many amenities that weren't even around in Manhattan yet. Writer James Silk Buckingham called the St. Charles, “Undoubtedly the largest, handsomest and most impressive hotel in the world.”
Lafcadio Hearn was also a fan: “The new hotel created quite a sensation, and New Orleans was given the credit of being the most enterprising - it was already recognized as the most aristocratic - city in the United States. It must be remembered that this was before the Americans had become a hotel-building people. The St. Charles was the first of the great hotels of the United States and it was some time before it found a rival (in the Astor House of New York).”
The first St. Charles hotel came to a dramatic demise. One night in January 1851, the hotel was full to the brim, housing some eight hundred guests, many of whom were in the building at 11pm. It was at this time that the upper part of the hotel caught on fire. Investigations later would suggest a defective chimney or careless workmen. Nevertheless, the flames raged, and while—miraculously—the guests were evacuated without casualty, the general incompetence of the fire service meant that the damage was much more severe than it might otherwise have been. The fire, according to Hearn, “lit up the entire city” and spread to neighboring blocks, destroying churches, houses and public buildings.
This didn’t deter an immediate plan of action - it’s hard to lord it over anyone from the ashes, after all - and in 1852, the second St. Charles Hotel stood on the same spot. The new model had a similar style as the original, though its most distinctive feature—the domed copula—was gone forever.
In the late 1850s, the hotel was still a sophisticated place for high society to congregate. In an 1860 book, Lillian Foster describes the heady lives of the 'ladies who lunched' in the mid-nineteenth century. Status anxiety was just as prevalent then as it is now: “At dinner, served in the early afternoon,” she says, “is revealed the ambition, the ostentation, the panting struggle for superiority in mere external experience, which is the essence of the life of a fashionable woman.”
Dinner. Coffee. Siesta. Dress for the opera. Opera. Ball. For ladies “as elegantly gowned” as those in Paris, life was a relentless treadmill of luxury…hence all that panting, presumably. But the good times, to borrow a cliche, couldn’t last. The ogre of the Civil War was lumbering into view, and the hotel would have a front row seat. Over the coming years, many of the campaigns and planning meetings would take place within its walls.
The manager at the time, Mr. Hildreth, was a Northerner. In May 1862, General Butler sent word that he and his Confederate troops were to arrive in the city and were to take up accommodations in the hotel. Mr. Hildreth refused, and a skirmish broke out. Butler and his men broke into the hotel and then eventually took control of the entire building, opening it up as a boardinghouse for officers for the whole of the war. Confederate soldiers were treated to fine accommodations on their return, housed at the St. Charles. What these returning soldiers didn’t have too much of, though, was ready money, and the hotel racked up $30,000 ($800,000) worth of bills that were never settled.
A short boom period followed until around 1868, but hard times lay ahead. In 1878, the hotel underwent extensive repairs, but the fate of the second St. Charles Hotel was well signposted. As John Kendall tells it in his 1922 History of New Orleans: “A serious fire in 1876 did extensive damage to the hotel; another on October 3, 1880, when damage estimated at $25,000 was done; and finally, on April 28, 1894, the building was entirely consumed. It is rather a remarkable fact that only in the last fire was there any known loss of life. In 1851, several people were slightly injured. In the last fire, however, four persons perished, and a number were more or less slightly injured. The present building was erected immediately after the fire.”
The “present building” - St Charles III - was up and running in 1895 and was built in a Beaux Arts style rather than Greek Revival. The hotel business was getting competitive in New Orleans as the twentieth century advanced, and the St. Charles consolidated its luxury amenities, a step that didn’t go unnoticed in the 1902 guide to New Orleans published by the Honorable James S. Zacharie:
“The St. Charles will be one of the largest and finest houses in the country, with accommodations for more than a thousand guests. It is fireproof, steam-heated and lighted throughout with electricity. The drinking water is filtered, distilled and aerated, and the ice made from it on the premises. The Turkish and Russian Baths are of marble, with every modern convenience for comfort and luxury, and with experienced massage operators, chiropodists and manicurists. The Hotel is modern, first-class and kept up to the highest standard in all departments.”
In 1912, the hotel embarked on a national marketing campaign that actually coined a nickname for New Orleans. It was at this time that the St Charles began to bill New Orleans as ‘The City That Care Forgot” a nicely ambiguous turn of phrase that soon became subsumed in the city’s lexicon. The Daily Picayune ran a four-column advert that read: “New Orleans. The city that care forgot. The St Charles. The center of the city’s hotel life.” This campaign went national, backed up with a souvenir photo booklet, The City That Care Forgot, which by 1917 had reached its third edition.
The hotel maintained its prestige for much of the first half of the twentieth century, still managing to attract celebrities, politicians, royalty and heads of state. A slow deterioration from around 1950 was noticeable. Even a takeover by the Sheraton Hotel Group in 1959 did little to halt the decline. At this time, the hotel had a tiki bar called the Outrigger, with “authentic” Polynesian décor and exotic drinks, which operated alongside the longstanding Café de Paris. These outlets did little to improve custom, and Sheraton sold the property in 1965.
The third incarnation of this grand old hotel, which had survived so much for so long, finally gave up the ghost in 1974, closing its doors and facing demolition for the final time. Standing in its place, at the address 201 St. Charles Avenue, is now the 53-storey Place St. Charles.
MODERN-DAY NEW ORLEANS' HOTEL REVIEWS!
