<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"View Slideshow\n\nA block away there&amp;#39;s Bourbon Street, with its round-the-clock jazz. Just a bit farther, among the antiques shops of Royal Street, more stately pleasures can be found. And that&amp;#39;s not even mentioning the city&amp;#39;s gastronomic delights, which are everywhere, or the annual street-wild frenzy known as Mardi Gras. Despite the sometimes chaotic surroundings, at Maison Orl\u00E9ans, one of New Orleans&amp;#39;s newer and smaller hotels, something less obvious but just as typical of this fabled city is taking place: Time is standing still.\n\nIn New Orleans, &amp;quot;an hour isn&amp;#39;t just an hour,&amp;quot; as Tennessee Williams once wrote, &amp;quot;but a little piece of eternity dropped into your hands.&amp;quot; At the 75-room hotel on the edge of the French Quarter, hours pass, almost imperceptibly, among portraits from long-forgotten families and softly lit crystal chandeliers.\n\nIn such an atmosphere, even the powerful temptations of the surrounding streets seem to recede, at least for a time.\n\n&amp;quot;We wanted guests to have the experience of staying in a New Orleans Garden District home,&amp;quot; says architect Gary Gilbert, the partner in charge of design at the Baton Rouge-based firm Robert M. Coleman Partners, which created Maison Orl\u00E9ans from the inauspicious contours of two windowless, cast-in-place-concrete warehouses.\n\nIn truth, this pocket-size hotel was an afterthought. It was conceived several years ago, after the Coleman firm had taken on the massive project of converting a portion of the fabled Maison Blanche department store and Kress buildings\u2014both dating from the turn of the last century\u2014as well as adjacent buildings, including two warehouses, into two hotels: The Ritz-Carlton, New Orleans, and The Iberville Suites. During construction, additional space within the department store became available, floor plans were quickly adjusted, and there turned out to be room to spare.\n\nThe idea of creating a small hotel appealed to everyone, from developer to architect, but not the kind with one harried desk clerk and meals sprinted in from the restaurant down the block. With The Ritz-Carlton&amp;#39;s resources to draw on\u2014including 24-hour room service and spa facilities\u2014the plan was for luxury on a deliberately small scale. (Independently owned, Maison Orl\u00E9ans is the first boutique hotel to be managed by The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company.)\n\n&amp;quot;We wanted southern grandeur, southern hospitality and a southern feel,&amp;quot; says Gilbert. &amp;quot;We didn&amp;#39;t want it to seem like a renovated warehouse.&amp;quot;\n\nTo make sure that it didn&amp;#39;t, Gilbert and Coleman began a quest for a design &amp;quot;that would feel as if it had always been there,&amp;quot; explains Gilbert. The architects looked to some of the city&amp;#39;s venerable houses and asked themselves, &amp;quot;What is the essence of these spaces?&amp;quot; Gilbert recalls. They answered that question with a layout lifted straight from the local vernacular: a compact entranceway, a broad central corridor and regally laid-out public rooms.\n\nTo fill in these carefully planned spaces, Lisa M. Condon, of Lisambiance Design, a native of New Orleans who has worked on several hotel conversions in the city, did extensive research into antebellum homes. She haunted auction houses and antiques shops and shopped for period furniture, accessories and art, including an impressive collection of timeworn portraits. (The latter contribute immeasurably to the hotel&amp;#39;s homey atmosphere. As Condon puts it, &amp;quot;It&amp;#39;s very New Orleans, having family around.&amp;quot;)\n\nThe hotel&amp;#39;s entrance hall makes a strong first impression with a large floral painting positioned above a marble-topped French country table and a leather-seated Louis XVI chair, all dating from the 18th and 19th centuries. The deep colors here are almost dramatically rich. &amp;quot;I just felt like it needed something more intense to bring you in,&amp;quot; says the designer. &amp;quot;And it does.&amp;quot;\n\nTo reach the lobby, guests walk past gilt Corinthian columns and up a broad central stairway (its railings made of the ornate cast iron so typical of the French Quarter), then are whisked by elevator up to the fourth floor. There, the colors soften to more subdued tones. Pocket doors open off a grand hallway to the public areas, which include a dining room, living room and library.\n\nFrom the moment guests check into the hotel, at a marble-topped wood desk of Condon&amp;#39;s design, everything conspires to make them feel as if they&amp;#39;re in a private home. There are no hotel logos anywhere, and only a certain unearthly order gives the game away. The truth, of course, is that this is a place in which scores of paying guests come and go, a fact any hotel designer must keep in mind. When it comes to furniture, durability is required. &amp;quot;The pieces that needed to be really functional had to be reproductions,&amp;quot; Condon explains. &amp;quot;The antiques wouldn&amp;#39;t have held up.&amp;quot;\n\nThe living room artfully combines both old and new. Although such pieces as a green-and-beige-brocade-covered chair with a round back are recent, there are some rare older items here, too, including a walnut Directoire buffet \u00E0 deux corps\u2014found in a Baton Rouge antiques store\u2014that&amp;#39;s used as an ad hoc bar. This purchase was so successful that Condon went on to buy an oak version, also dating from about 1800, for the library. She fashioned the latter room, with its striking hunter-green walls and stained-mahogany wainscoting, as a masculine refuge, envisioning men retreating to it to smoke cigars and sip Grand Marnier after a copious evening meal. Such antediluvian scenarios notwithstanding, &amp;quot;women like it too,&amp;quot; Condon points out. &amp;quot;It&amp;#39;s just very comfortable.&amp;quot;\n\nIn the guest rooms, hotel design conventions were flouted in favor of something that feels closer to home. Area rugs cover hardwood floors, and fireplaces, though nonfunctional, play an important aesthetic role. &amp;quot;They give each room a center,&amp;quot; says the hotel&amp;#39;s general manager, John Russell. Besides, their antique cast-iron summer covers\u2014some with shell motifs, others with floral\u2014are &amp;quot;really authentic to late-19th-century New Orleans,&amp;quot; according to Condon. So, too, are the carved wood tester beds\u2014a reinterpretation of a 19th-century design\u2014with their tasseled tie-backs and cascading Austrian silk.\n\nGiven such details, you can see why Russell describes Maison Orl\u00E9ans as &amp;quot;more unlike a hotel than any hotel you&amp;#39;ve seen.&amp;quot; Like the French Quarter itself\u2014with its jangle of influences, from swing music to voodoo to haute cuisine\u2014Maison Orl\u00E9ans is a paradox, an elegant paradox. No wonder it fits right in."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/hotels-maison-article-092002>