Hotel Monteleone

The story

In 1886, a Sicilian cobbler named Antonio Monteleone acquired the hotel on Royal Street, establishing a multi-generational legacy that his family still operates today. Over the decades, the site was transformed into a Beaux-Arts grand hotel in the heart of the French Quarter, anchored on the ground floor by its famous Carousel Bar—a slowly revolving counter that turns patrons in a continuous circle while they drink.

Beneath the hotel's polished exterior lies one of the Quarter's most persistent haunted reputations. The center of the hotel's ghost lore is Maurice Begere, a toddler who died of a fever inside the building during the 1890s. Generations of staff and guests have reported encounters along the upper residential corridors: the sound of a child's laughter echoing down deserted hallways, brief sightings of a small boy, and the sensation of invisible hands reaching out to hold theirs.

The unexplained phenomena at 214 Royal Street extend beyond the upper floors. Guests and workers in the lobby have reported seeing the face of a clockmaker appearing inside the reflection of the hotel's ornate grandfather clock. Between the slow motion of the spinning bar below and the lingering reports upstairs, the Monteleone remains steeped in its late-19th-century history.