A New Orleans Revival: New ideas and great boutique hotels in the Big Easy

New Orleans has given us great musicians such as Wynton Marsalis and Harry Connick, Jr.; chefs like Emeril Lagasse, Paul Prudhomme, and John Besh; artists such as Ida Kohlmeyer and Lin Emery; photographers like Clarence John Laughlin and Richard Sexton; and it has also inspired writers such as William Faulkner, Anne Rice, and Stephen Ambrose. The city’s talent pool engenders creativity and makes New Orleans a unique cultural destination.

Four years post-Katrina, we are experiencing a new New Orleans. The city’s unique cultural amenities continue to lure visitors from afar. But innovation and rejuvenation are key elements in expanding the allure of this great American city as it recovers. As start-up companies and entrepreneurs are gravitating to New Orleans, incentives are being created for businesses to relocate here. The city’s deep pool of local talent, coupled with low overhead and government incentives, create a rich playground for entrepreneurs and developers.

According to cutting-edge developer/hotelier Sean Cummings, “New Orleans is morphing into America’s boutique city,” he says. A visionary urbanist, he perceives the Big Easy as a new breeding ground for entrepreneurs, and has consequently co-founded Start-Up New Orleans (http://www.startupneworleans.com) in an effort to drive creative-minded people to the city by emphasizing its rich culture, low cost, and economic advantages.

As successful New Orleans entrepreneurs are reaching out around the country to attract other entrepreneurs to the city, they have attracted enterprises such as liaMolly (which sells knits to Anthropologie), Free Flow Power (a hydrokinetic renewable energy company), Audio Socket Music (fresh from Seattle), Receivable Exchange (an electronic financial marketplace which recently closed $7.75 million in Series B financing from Red Point Ventures), and sought-after Los Angeles celeb designer LM Pagano, who recently opened a satellite office here. A New Orleans entrepreneur with an eye to the future, Cummings’ largest endeavor to date for his beloved city is a massive redevelopment project for New Orleans, Reinventing the Crescent, which will rejuvenate 4.5 miles of city-owned riverfront property. The project includes a redevelopment of the World Trade Center (including 250 residences and 130 hotels rooms), an amphitheater, a new cruise ship terminal, and miles of green space for biking and jogging.

Some of the city’s new start-up entrepreneurs are gathering in loft-style office space at Entrepreneur’s Row, made available by Cummings to promising colleagues; and they are hobnobbing after hours over cocktails at his nearby plush and sensual bar, Loa, located at Cummings’ stylish International House hotel that revitalized the Central Business District when it opened 10 years ago. Cummings has won acclaim for his pair of stylish boutique hotels, International House and Loft 523, the hippest hotels in the city. The innovative developer is known for his adaptive reuse of historic buildings that stay true to the city’s roots.

To update and enhance International House, Cummings obtained the services of LM Pagano, the designer of choice for actors Nicolas Cage and Johnny Depp, for the redesign of his hotel a couple of years ago (Pagano served as Cage’s personal assistant and also his full-time interior designer, completing the interiors of many of his homes; she designed the plush interior of Depp’s award-winning yacht and is currently at work on the interior design of two of Depp’s “compounds”).

“I share a similar appreciation and a need to honor what is essentially New Orleans,” says Pagano of her collaboration with Cummings on the redesign of International House. “We wanted to update and refresh it in a really modern way without affecting what is essentially traditional and why people come to New Orleans.”

International House (221 Camp Street, New Orleans; 504-553-9550; 800-633-5770; ihhotel.com) reflects the compelling charms of New Orleans as America’s most sensual city, but with a modern flair. Its Beaux Arts façade greets guests with stately white columns. Upon entering the monumental bronze doors adorned with custom plumb-bob handles, the luxurious red velvet chairs and plush Brunello carpets set the stage for a large “playpen” ottoman at the center of the lobby, with an extravagantly oversized drink tray twinkling with iridescent capiz shell inlay. “I wanted to celebrate the parlors and bordellos that colored the history of New Orleans, and I wanted to invite people to hang out there,” Pagano says. Stretched along the far wall, an early 20th-century Argentine balcony transformed into a console table is fashioned after the wrought-iron galleries seen on French Quarter buildings.

Elements of iron, fire, velvet, and wood add to the rich ambiance. A West African fertility bench graced with glowing pillar candles and fresh flowers hints at the rituals and religiosity that contribute to the city’s mystery and charm. “It’s a chief’s bed from West Africa. I’ve made it sort of a permanent altar,” Pagano explains. “We also have two Walga king chairs from the Ivory Coast. We wanted to bring those elements that make up this unique city into the hotel.”

Just off the lobby, locals and visitors settle into Loa, the hotel’s bar. The romantic atmosphere is enhanced with a large circular sofa upholstered in cut velvet that is surrounded by a dozen diminutive ottomans that invite guests to linger. The bar is bathed in the glow of candlelight with oversized candlesticks standing tall on the copper bar, the Calcutta gold-topped altar, and on the cocktail tables scattered about the room. “We placed a giant Marie Thérese chandelier in the corner and I brought the crystals almost down to the floor,” remarks Pagano. Its ruby-colored prisms render a warm glow to the room’s red palette, adding to Pagano’s provocative design. An absinthe fountain embellishes the decadence and reflects the city’s colorful history regarding the controversial “Green Fairy.” Pagano’s redesign extended to two expansive penthouses (completed in the summer of 2008) that top the hotel with terraces and majestic panoramic views of the Mississippi River. Wide planks of reclaimed pine add an old-world aura, and unique tribal pieces reflect the city’s West African heritage. Floor to ceiling honed slabs of Calcutta Gold marble clad oversized bathrooms and showers. Dornbracht platinum-nickel faucets pour an elegant cascade of water into seven-foot soaking tubs, over which hang expansive mirrors and glittering chandeliers. In the penthouse named Muse, an ebony baby grand piano stands ready. In the Cityscape penthouse, an extravagantly sized taupe and chocolate damask ottoman provides relaxed seating with a pair of velvet LM Pagano “chairs-and-a-half.” Throughout the hotel, the beds are dressed in super-fine white Fil D’Oro linens. Each of the 15 superior rooms has been redesigned as well.

The king-size beds are embraced by grand seven-foot-tall oyster-colored headboards of tufted leather. Bedside tables of wrought iron with cruciform feet and Erica Larsen African-inspired café tables provide additional surface area. Pagano’s generous “chair-and-a-half” in tobacco-colored antique velvet adds to the luxury. The generous bathrooms feature oval Kallista sinks and a tall beveled mirror suggesting ecclesiastical vessels, while the vanity light’s dramatic canopy of descending Swarovski crystals accentuates the extravagance.

The ultimate bath can be enjoyed at Cummings’s other boutique hotel, the sleek and contemporary, pet-friendly Loft 523 (523 Gravier Street, New Orleans, Louisiana; 504-200-6532; www.loft523.com), which features a 24-hour fitness center, 16 Soho-style lofts averaging 600 feet, and two sprawling penthouses with garden terraces. Guests can enjoy the “spoon” tub in spacious, spa-like bathrooms in all superior rooms. Amenities in guest rooms include Frette linens, Modern Fan Company’s “Whirly Bird” ceiling fans, and Aveda bath products. For an over-the-top bath experience, guests can order the luxurious milk bath in a cappuccino-style spoon tub, and enjoy the complementary Crispy Crème doughnuts as a sweet indulgence. As the new New Orleans lures innovators and entrepreneurs, Cummings is making certain that the city is an ideal base for idea people and visitors. From his luxury boutique hotels and Entrepreneur’s Row to the innovative projects such as StartUp New Orleans and Reinventing the Crescent (slated for a groundbreaking timed with New Orleans’ 300th anniversary), Cummings is on the cutting edge of reviving a fabled, captivating city that is reinventing itself with new vigor. ✦