When Nathalie Jordi, a well-known community-minded New Orleans resident, wanted to open a B&B in the city, she reached out to Ari Heckman, founding partner and CEO at Brooklyn-based design development firm, ASH NYC. Her sister was a former intern of Heckman’s, and Jordi attended college with one of Heckman’s partners on the Dean hotel in Providence, Rhode Island. Perhaps he’d have some advice. Instead, Heckman, who was eager to embark on another hotel project, suggested meeting to “explore a much larger collaboration,” he says.
In New Orleans, Jordi organized a tour of possible locations for a hotel with the caveat that the final, impressive stop wasn’t for sale and had the wrong zoning. This alluring 19th-century site in the Faubourg Marigny district encompassed a quartet of buildings: a church and rectory originally designed by Henry Howard, along with a school and convent. With a bit of persistence, negotiations, and an extensive rehab, it became the Hotel Peter & Paul at the end of 2018, a joint venture between ASH NYC and Jordi.
The 71 color-coded guestrooms are primarily located in the school house, but are also scattered in the convent, where there is a retail space, and the rectory, home to a courtyard anchored by the church bell and the Elysian Bar. Meanwhile, the spacious red brick church serves as the event space.
The convent is “a bit more monastic and austere” of a space, points out Heckman, than the peach-washed rectory guestrooms that “reflect a papal palace.” Past the arrival area’s dramatic double staircase at reception, the school house’s guestrooms are playful, mixing the tones showcased in European and African religious paintings and tapestries from the 14th through 18th centuries with plentiful gingham. In fact, each floor is done in a different rich hue—red, yellow, blue, and pine green—and a dozen or so various-sized checkered patterns are used on curtains and furniture.
Cypress wood moldings, ornate mirrors, stained glass windows, wainscoted corridors, and Italianate marble fireplaces create a sense of hushed, bygone elegance. “We preserved any original detail we could find and replaced many that we knew once existed from plans or photos, like the baluster in the school,” explains Heckman. These elements are buoyed by distinctive touches like religious icon paintings, cross details on four-poster beds, candlesticks-turned-lamps, rugs handmade in India, vintage furniture sourced locally at estate sales and in Europe at fairs, terracotta bathroom flooring, and armoires influenced by French artist Christian Bérard’s trompe l’oeil work for Guerlain.
From the team behind local hotspot Bacchanal Fine Wine & Spirits, the multiroom Elysian Bar telegraphs the bayou with its inverted tree trunk- shaped backbar and a latticed bamboo ceiling in the bar. Beyond, the yellow-hued dining room is resplendent in a red and white checkered floor and an abundance of greenery. Before guests reach that animated space, there is the “discreet tented front desk that is a tranquil moment,” says Heckman. “The lobby is somewhat of a sacred space that encourages reflection and awe.”
