Antonio Monteleone was a Sicilian immigrant who started as a cobbler on Royal Street and bought a 64-room hotel in 1886. Five generations later, the family still owns it. Now over 600 rooms.
The Carousel Bar has been revolving since 1949 — a 25-seat circular bar that makes one full rotation every 15 minutes. The only revolving bar in the city and one of the few in the country.
The Monteleone is a designated Literary Landmark — one of only a handful of hotels in the United States to have it. William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty, Sherwood Anderson, Richard Ford, and Truman Capote all stayed or drank here.
Capote told everyone he was born at this hotel. He wasn't. He was born at Touro Infirmary across town. But Capote understood that a hospital birth is a fact and a hotel birth is a STORY.
Tennessee Williams lived in the French Quarter while writing A Streetcar Named Desire. The play's title comes from the real Desire streetcar line, which ran through t
he neighborhood. Desire, Cemeteries, Elysian Fields — all real New Orleans names Williams used as allegory. The streetcar line was discontinued the year after the play debuted.
The fourteenth floor is supposedly haunted — which is actually the thirteenth, because the hotel skips that number.
— From the tour: The French Quarter Cheat Code
