The Whit, a 15-room hotel in a Garden District mansion, New Orleans

Few houses arrive with a back story like this one. The 1857 Greek Revival Harris-Maginnis House, on the corner of Prytania Street and Jackson Avenue in the Garden District, has seen a cotton merchant lost to yellow fever, an owner killed by lightning, a themed B&B run by a Tina Turner impersonator and, later, an FBI raid. It also has a firm place on the city's ghost tours. Now it is The Whit, named after Walt Whitman, who spent three months in New Orleans around the time it was built.

Local designers Jensen Killen and Katie Logan Leblanc of Logan Killen swapped the gothic murals and purple velvet for something that feels like a long-inhabited home. Leblanc says the aim was a place where nobody can quite tell a designer has been in. Architect Seamus McGuire of Cicada turned three bedrooms into lounges, including a mahogany-panelled library hung with antique dog portraits and stocked by Faulkner House Books. The breakfast room is wrapped in matching Pierre Frey wallpaper and curtains, and the blue main lounge becomes a cocktail bar at night, with a salon wall of Louisiana artists. Landmark rules meant the second-floor bar went openly Deco.

The 15 bedrooms differ, from oxblood-walled garden rooms to airy cabana rooms with bamboo beds. Worth a look for anyone who likes their hotels storied, ghosts optional.

Our summary of a story from Architectural Digest, published 29 October 2026. Read the original