HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
1886 French Quarter Literary Hotel with Twelve Documented Entities
214 Royal St, New Orleans, LA 70130
Research updated October 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
$220–$600/night depending on room category and season. Literary Suites and Iberville Tower rooms at premium rates. Direct booking saves $10/night over OTA rates.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Full-service urban hotel with elevator; French Quarter location
Equipment
Photos OK
Five Generations Family Ownership · Literary Landmark (Friends of Libraries USA 1999) · French Quarter Historic District · Tennessee Williams / Truman Capote Connection
Antonio Monteleone arrived in New Orleans from Sicily and built a successful shoe-making business before purchasing the 64-room Commercial Hotel at Royal and Iberville in 1886. He renamed it Hotel Monteleone and began a program of expansion that would eventually produce a 570-room property.
The hotel became a gathering point for American literary culture in the early and mid-20th century. Truman Capote, who was born in New Orleans, claimed to have been born at the Hotel Monteleone — a claim disputed by hospital records but maintained in Capote family lore. Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and Ernest Hemingway all stayed there and referenced it in their work. The hotel was designated a Literary Landmark by the Friends of Libraries USA in 1999.
The Carousel Bar, a slowly rotating cocktail lounge installed in the 1940s, is among New Orleans' most distinctive hotel amenities and has operated continuously since. It rotates on a track, completing a full circuit roughly every 15 minutes.
In 2003, the International Society of Paranormal Research conducted a formal investigation of the hotel and identified more than a dozen distinct entities within the building. The report, cited across multiple sources, represents one of the few formally documented paranormal investigation findings associated with a major operational luxury hotel.
Sources
Maurice Begere's story is the most precisely contextualized of the hotel's documented paranormal accounts. His parents, Jacques and Josephine, were theatergoers who regularly attended the French Opera House on Bourbon Street and left their toddler son in a nurse's care during performances. On one occasion, Maurice developed a fever while they were out. He died before they returned.
Josephine Begere subsequently returned to the hotel annually, and on one of those visits reportedly encountered her son's apparition on the 14th floor. According to the account preserved in the hotel's official records, he told her: 'Mommy, don't cry. I'm fine.' The family's continued annual returns to the hotel are documented.
Guests who knew nothing of the Maurice Begere story have reported encounters on the same floor: a small boy seen passing the foot of a bed, or heard laughing in the hallway. A guest interviewed in multiple accounts described waking to see a child moving through her room, only to find herself alone when she turned on the light — her husband had already left for breakfast.
The 2003 International Society of Paranormal Research investigation documented more than a dozen distinct presences in the building, making the Hotel Monteleone unusual among luxury hotels in having formal investigation documentation. The hotel's other reported entities include figures in early 20th-century clothing in the hallways and an unidentified presence associated with the lower floors.
Notable Entities
570 rooms in a Beaux-Arts French Quarter landmark operated by five generations of the Monteleone family since 1886. The 14th floor is associated with Maurice Begere, a child who died there in the 1890s and whose apparition has been reported bouncing a ball in the hallways. The Carousel Bar — a slowly rotating cocktail lounge — is a New Orleans institution in its own right.
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