Make Reservation Located on one of the city's most prestigious corners in the heart of the Central Business District, The Whitney Hotel has a rich history. While the name of the building may have changed over the years, it has always reflected the spirit of the time. The illustrious history of this building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is a renowned landmark to the City of New Orleans.
The Moresque Building was the original structure that sat at Poydras and Camp Streets, which is now home to The Whitney Hotel. This cast-iron building housed Montgomery Furniture Co. and owner, John Gauche’s family-operated crockery and glassware company. In 1897, the building met an “iron”-ic demise by fire where the picturesque establishment essentially melted despite being deemed as fireproof for its iron walls. Gauche’s widow, Marie Eve Dietrich, sold the land where the building once stood to the Times-Democrat Publishing (the Times-Picayune’s then-rival that eventually merged) in 1905, and after a lengthy court battle to establish title, the company sold it to the Metropolitan Bank in 1908.
Diboll, Owen & Goldstein, one of the most important architectural firms of the post Reconstruction era whose principles helped found the Architectural School at Tulane University, was commissioned to design the Metropolitan Bank Building. They chose the highly fashionable Beaux Arts style. Because this was to be the world headquarters of a then-thriving banking concern, the seven-story, brick and granite structure featured signature arched windows and doors, an elegant curved corner, classical architectural details and decorative sculptural elements, including bas-relief urns.
The Whitney Trust & Savings Bank, which later became the Whitney National Bank, took over the Metropolitan Bank in 1929 where the Poydras Street branch was located for decades. In 1985, the Whitney National Bank was added to the National Register of Historic Places for its momentous architecture. [The Whitney] “is an important example of the work of a noted New Orleans architectural firm and because it is a landmark in the architectural heritage of the New Orleans central business district.”
Just prior to the turn of the last millennium, the Whitney National Bank sold the building to Whitney Hotel Limited Partnership and the building was converted into The Whitney Hotel by Wyndham. Regardless of the building's new direction, the Whitney still accommodated the full-service bank branch and its office space while operating 93 guestrooms plus a Creole-Asian restaurant, 56 Degrees. In 2014, the hotel was purchased by the New Orleans Hotel Collection (rebranded the J Collection in 2020). The Poydras Branch expired in 2018 and today, the Whitney operates solely as a hotel.