Louis Grunewald built his 200-room hotel to be ready for the 1894 Mardi Gras season, and his timing was impeccable -- the St. Charles Hotel, the only other major hotel in the city, burned down shortly after the Grunewald opened. By 1908, Grunewald had added a 14-story Annex tower with 400 rooms, designed by the architectural firm Toledano & Wogan, at a cost of $2.5 million. The Annex's Italian marble staircase rose to an overlooking mezzanine, and the tower brought new entertainment spaces including the Forest Grill and the Fountain Grill. But the showpiece was The Cave -- a subterranean nightclub designed to mimic a natural cavern, complete with artificial waterfalls, stalactites, glass-topped tables, and statues of gnomes and nymphs. Nightly revues rivaling the Ziegfeld Follies played to packed audiences. The Cave became one of the most talked-about entertainment venues in the American South.

When the Vacarro business group bought the hotel in 1923, they renamed it The Roosevelt in honor of Theodore Roosevelt, whose Panama Canal had been an economic windfall for New Orleans. The man who truly defined the Roosevelt era, however, was Seymour Weiss -- a former barber shop manager who rose through every rank of hotel management to become general manager and eventually owner. Weiss was the confidant of Louisiana Governor and U.S. Senator Huey P. Long, who kept a 12th-floor suite as his state headquarters during the 1930s. Long was famous for his appetite for Ramos gin fizzes and once had the Roosevelt's head bartender, Sam Guarino, flown to the New Yorker Hotel in New York City to teach the staff how to make them. Long's notorious 'Deduct Box' -- the container holding political contributions from state employees -- was believed to be hidden somewhere in the hotel. It has never been found. A replica now stands in the lobby.

On New Year's Eve 1935, Weiss opened the Blue Room, which became the premier music venue in New Orleans for decades, hosting acts like Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Sammy Kaye, and Guy Lombardo. In 1938, the Main Bar opened with its mahogany counter, walnut-paneled walls, and murals by artist Paul Ninas -- features that remain focal points of the hotel today. But Weiss's most memorable stroke came in 1949, when he purchased the rights to the name 'Sazerac Bar' from the Sazerac Company and announced that the new bar would abolish its 'men-only' policy. Women from across the city descended on the venue in what became known as Storming the Sazerac -- an event the hotel still celebrates annually with vintage costumes and cocktails. The hotel also began its tradition of decorating its block-long lobby for Christmas, a practice that continues today and has become an iconic fixture of the New Orleans holiday season.

The Swig family purchased the hotel in 1965 and rechristened it the Fairmont, modernizing the property over the following decades. Then Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005. The Fairmont New Orleans closed indefinitely, and repair work stalled in 2007 when damage estimates proved far worse than expected. The building sat wounded and empty until 2007, when Sam Friedman of Dimension Development announced a $100 million renovation to convert the property into a Waldorf Astoria hotel and restore the Roosevelt name. The renovation was a deliberate act of return -- the lobby was stripped of carpet to reveal and repair the original floors, the Sazerac Bar was restored to its 1940s appearance, and the rooftop tennis courts gave way to a modern pool deck. On July 1, 2009, The Roosevelt Hotel reopened its doors. The 504-room hotel now holds 125 suites, 23 ballrooms, and more than a century of stories embedded in its walnut-paneled walls.