The original Hotel Grunewald in New Orleans, Louisiana was constructed on Baronne Street, was 6 stories tall and had 200 guestrooms.  The Hotel opened December 1893.  Louis Grunewald planned and constructed the Grunewald Annex which connected the Lobby between Baronne Street and University Place.  The Annex was 14 stories tall and had 400 guestrooms.  It was part of the Annex construction that “The Cave” was constructed in the Basement which included waterfalls, stalactites, glass topped tables and statues of gnomes and nymphs; some considered “The Cave” the first nightclub in the United States.  The Annex opened January 1, 1908. 

Theodore Grunewald (Louis’ son) sold the Hotel to a business group in early 1923 four years after the 18^th Amendment was signed into law that triggered the Prohibition era.  The business group was headed by the Vacarro family.  They immediately planned the demolition of the original Grunewald Baronne Tower.  During that construction on October 31, 1923 the Hotel was renamed The Roosevelt Hotel in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt, whose efforts to construct the Panama Canal had a tremendous financial impact on the City of New Orleans.  Two years later, on October 1, 1925 the new Baronne Street tower was opened; it was 16 stories (211 feet above the street). 

The Hotel was sold to New Orleans Roosevelt Corporation headed by Seymour Weiss who had started his career at the Hotel as the barber shop Manager.  He was later promoted to the Head of Publicity and Conventions, followed by Associate Manager, Assistant Manager, and eventually General Manager of the Hotel.  The sale to Weiss’s group was finalized December 12, 1934 one year following President Franklin Roosevelt signing the 21^st Amendment that repealed the 18^th Amendment and the end of the Prohibition era.

It was under the guidance of Seymour Weiss that the Romanesque Room, later renamed the Venetian Room and finally the Blue Room opened December 31, 1935 and was for decades the premier music venue in the City that included Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Sammy Kay and Guy Lombardo.  The construction of the Common Street Building in 1954 presented an opportunity to Mr. Weiss to lease 7 floors of the building on University Place; the improvements increased the room count to 900 and the construction of the International Ballroom that could accommodate 2,200 attendees. 

On November 19, 1965 Seymour Weiss agreed to sell the Hotel to Benjamin and Richard Swig, the owners of the Fairmont Hotel San Francisco. Under the ownership of the Swig’s, limited improvements were made principally cosmetic in the look and design of the Hotel.  In 1994 Lewis Wolff with partner Phillip Maritz founded Maritz, Wolff & Company who had purchased a major controlling interest in the Fairmont Hotel and Resort Americas chain that included the Fairmont Hotel New Orleans. 

In August 2005 Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and with the failure of the levees caused significant damage to the Hotel; it was closed along with most of the City of New Orleans displaced.  Damage was profound around the City with the exception of the French Quarter; why… the French Quarter was constructed about a foot higher than the surrounding City.  The insurance underwriters controlled the scope of the reconstruction; planning was started, demolition work commenced but by March 2007 all work was suspended.

August 2007 Maritz Wolff & Company (Roosevelt Ventures, LLC) agreed to sell the Hotel to Sam Friedman’s Dimension Development Company who under the stewardship of Eric Arender, Vice President of Construction restarted the construction.  The scope of the re-construction expanded beyond the guestrooms to replace the entire building’s MEP infrastructure.  Dimension Development concept was to restore the Hotel to those grand days of the 1930’s and 1940’s restoring the Sazerac Bar, restoration of the Blue Room, introducing John Besh’s Domenica Restaurant and construction of a Guerlain Health Spa.  Dimension Development inked a hotel management agreement with Hilton Waldorf Astoria to manage the restored Hotel and on October 23, 2009 with pomp and circumstance re-opened The Roosevelt Hotel, a Waldorf Astoria Collection.

Lewis Wolff engaged Hellman & Lober for multiple hotel projects over the course of more than 20 years prior to forming Maritz Wolff & Company…as the New Orleans asset challenges exposed themselves Maritz Wolff & Company in 1999 turned to Hellman & Lober to conduct a multi-faceted property assessment; we engaged an Architect, an Electrical Engineer, a Food Service Consultant and a Laundry Consultant.  The findings were startling by 1999 standards; the guestroom tower air conditioning equipment was the original system constructed in 1906-1908; a dual duct heating and cooling system with rooftop outside air dehumidification units that supplied dehumidified air source to the air handling units on each guestroom floor.  The floor air handling units were configured for constant volume dual duct; heating and cooling coils internally designed to distribute on each floor parallel “hot” and “cold” ducts.  Each guestroom was fitted with a thermostat that was connected to the “hot” and “cold” duct with control dampers allowing constant air flow into each guestroom varying the temperature by changing the proportion of hot and cold air supplies; for its time it was a very forward and innovative approach and some have suggested that the Grunewald Hotel was the first Hotel that was air conditioned. The return air flow path was through the guestroom corridors with grilles from each guestroom opening into the corridor and that air drawn to the air handling unit on the floor.  During the course of early room renovation projects the Louisiana State Fire Marshall insisted that as each room was remodeled it be fitted with a shutter-type fire damper to protect the exit corridors on each floor.