Plans were filed with the city this month for renovations to the Pontchartrain Hotel in the Garden District.
The new owners, AJ Capital out of Chicago, plan to revive the hotel’s entertainments spaces as well as upgrade the guest rooms. Minor modifications to the exterior are planned as well. The hotel is probably best known for the fact that the deal to create the New Orleans Saints was signed in its Bayou Bar.
Trapolin Peer are the architects on this project. Word on the street is that it’s a $10 million renovation.
According to the hotel’s website, the hotel was built in 1927 and named after the Count de Pontchartrain, a member of Louis XVI’s court, The Pontchartrain Hotel is a New Orleans treasure. The historic 14-story Garden District hotel has welcomed Hollywood stars including Tom Cruise, Nicholas Cage, Naomi Campbell, ZsaZsa Gabor, Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, and Walt Disney, as well as prominent New Orleanians such as famous author Anne Rice, Sears and Roebuck heiress Edith Stern, and Frankie Besthoff, whose family co-founded the K&B drugstore chain.
Check out the plans for the spruced up hotel below: