New Orleans (WGNO) – The original Roosevelt Hotel was constructed in 1893 and was called the Grunewald Hotel. The building at that time was a 14-story, 400-room luxury hotel.
Over the year’s The Roosevelt hosted many legends of the rich and famous. Sonny, Cher, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe all have dined at The Roosevelt.
In 1931, Seymour Weiss took ownership of the hotel and became Louisiana’s governors Huey P. Long’s right-hand man. Not long before Long was assassinated there was an attempt to assassinate Huey at the hotel in The Sazerac Bar. Inside the bar today lies the original wooden walls and bar top. When you visit look closely at the bar top and you’ll see cigaret burns embedded in the bar. Years and years of cigaret and cigar burns.
Rumors today circulate that Huey P. Long (aka, The Kingfish), left a large amount of money in a deduct box in the hotel which the hotel recreated the box located in the hotel lobby. To this day, no one knows where to find the deduct box that rumored to have Huey’s money inside. It could be the old volt that housed a jail cell or it could have been like the replica in the lobby.
Tod Chambers The Roosevelt’s General Manager says that someone claimed they knew where Huey had stashed the money in the hotel. When the hotel was going through renovations, she climbed through the open walls and floors of the hotel in search for that treasure Huey allegedly left behind. and the results ended sadly. No box, no money.
When the hotel was restored in 2009, it was 116 years old and had not been seen by the public since Katrina. The Chandlers were taken down and was clean crystal by crystal, a process that took months to finish. The floors that were ruined from carpet were restored to look like the original. The ceilings and the pallets look just as they were when the hotel first opened.
When you walk into The Roosevelt Hotel, you truly get a scent of history in the atmosphere and you know in your soul that big things happened in New Orleans at The Roosevelt Hotel
