8 New Orleans Bed & Breakfast Inns in the City of Music, Mardi Gras & History

8 New Orleans’ Bed & Breakfasts 

It’s not easy when you are in a candy store to choose and it’s not easy when you are in New Orleans to decide which bed and breakfast inns to pick for the best New Orleans vacation. Historic New Orleans inns give you a sense of place – especially when you sleep in a room with an antique fireplace that once warmed the movers and shakers of the town. Here are some good choices to consider.

 

Audubon Cottages

• John James Audubon lived in Cottage One while writing his Birds of America series. He used Cottage Seven as a studio.
• Elizabeth Taylor favored Cottage Three whenever she stayed in New Orleans.
• Surrounded by original brick, the saltwater pool is said to be the oldest in the city.

Grand Victorian Bed & Breakfast

• Designed and built by Thomas Sully, famed New Orleans architect.
• The world’s oldest, continuously operating street railway, the St. Charles Avenue streetcar, has a stop 10 feet from the front gate.
• The innkeeper is a big fan of the Saints and the LSU Tigers.

HH Whitney House

• The inn features a 1912 player piano.
• Fireplaces in the guest rooms are adorned by unique cypress mantels.
• The home’s original cistern now serves as a base for a Rebecca fountain.

Marigny Manor House 

• The original street name was Rue D’Amour (street of love). The Greek Revival-style cottage was built as a gift for a new bride.
• The Red Room features a velvet loveseat from the Mississippi Delta Queen Steamboat.
• The inn is located three blocks from the Frenchman Music District.

Sully Mansion

• The mansion has been a bed & breakfast for four decades.
• The inn made a cameo appearance in the film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
• The Esplanade guest room has a dressing room that once served as the second floor sleeping porch.

 Terrell House

• A grand three-story Italianate stucco-over-brick antebellum mansion in New Orleans, Louisiana. 
• Relax in elegance and comfort on a porch, in the den or double parlors with period English and American antiques.
• Linger over a satisfying breakfast that reflects warm southern hospitality before exploring the popular sites of the city.

The Gentry House Bed & Breakfast

• Stay in a convenient suite in the middle of the famous New Orleans French Quarter.
• The energy of the city is all around but quiet time can be found when you return to the inn.
• Bring a camera for photos in front of the well-known Saint Louis Cathedral overlooking Jackson Square.

Degas House

• Recognized by the French Ministry of Culture as home of Edgar Degas.
• Rooms are named for members of the Musson-Degas family with classic decor but air conditioning, Internet, and large screen televisions.
• The only home of Degas open to the public in the world.
• A professional wedding staff is available to assist in planning a French Quarter style wedding in the courtyard and parlors.

 

Outdoor Sites and Natural Attractions

City Park New Orleans

• With 1,300 acres and 11 miles of lagoons, visitors are sure to spot an alligator, pelican, or swan.
• Children and the young at heart can enjoy 16 rides, including an antique wooden carousel, in the amusement park.
• The Botanical Garden is home to a Train Garden boasting 1,300 feet of track that winds through a model of the city from the early 19^th century.

French Market

• The country’s oldest public market started as a Native American trading post in 1791.
• Café du Monde has been serving coffee and tasty beignets since 1862.
• The Market boasts more than 200 vendors in the open-air Farmers and Flea Market.

Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1

• The oldest surviving cemetery in the city.
• Homer Plessy, plaintiff in the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court civil rights trial, and Ernest N. “Dutch” Morial, first African-American mayor of New Orleans, are buried here. It is also believed that voodoo priestess Marie Laveau found her final resting place in the Glapion family crypt.
• Save Our Cemeteries offers daily tours.

The Sydney and WaldaBesthoff Sculpture Garden

• 64 sculptures are displayed on five acres in City Park adjacent to the New Orleans Museum of Art.
• Unlike most sculpture gardens, this one is home to many mature pine, magnolia, and oak trees.
• Sculptures include classic, bronze human forms and playful, modern interpretations of common objects.

Museums and Attractions

Backstreet Cultural Museum

• Its mission is to preserve and perpetuate the unique cultural traditions of the African-American society of the city.
• The Museum houses films of jazz funerals and Mardi Gras Indian performances dating back to the 1970s. The films are available for public access; they are also shared during the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
• Exhibits include suits and costumes for the Margi Gras Indians, the Skull and Bone Gangs, and the Baby Dolls tradition.

The National WWII Museum

• Ranked as the #4 museum in the United States and #11 worldwide by TripAdvisor.
• Visitors can watch staff restore artifacts in the John E. Kushner Restoration Pavilion.
• A 4D theater shows Beyond All Boundaries, an exclusive Tom Hanks production.

Ogden Museum of Southern Art

• Historians and collectors recognize the Ogden Collection as the most signification assemblage of Southern art.
• Southern musicians perform live every Thursday evening.
• Employees of museums from anywhere in the country are encouraged to show their badge for free general admission.

Preservation Hall

• Acoustic New Orleans Jazz concerts are presented three times a night, 350 nights a year.
• The Preservation Hall Jazz Band performed with the Grateful Dead and for the King of Thailand.
• The Hall was established because of the popularity of jam sessions at a local art gallery.

 

Visit the New Orleans Convention & Visitors Bureau or the New Orleans Official Guide for more attractions.

Read Before You Go

• The Awakening by Kate Chopin – A foundation for feminism, this book gained popularity in the 1960s, six decades after its controversial release.
• A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole – A comic masterpiece featuring residents of the city’s lower depths and the obese, yet heroic, Ignatius J. Reilly.
• Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice – The first in the Vampire Chronicles, this modern classic is better than the movie.
• A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams – Vivid characters set against a cultural New Orleans backdrop are portrayed in a Pulitzer Prize-winning play.