PRICE:
Frommer's Very Highly Recommended

On the site of the former D. H. Holmes Canal Street department store (1849), the Chateau Sonesta Hotel maintains the structure's 1913 facade. Thanks to Canal Street flooding, the hotel had to renovate over 50% of their guest rooms (which are now quite spiffy and fresh), plus their famous Clock Bar. Many rooms feature balconies overlooking Bourbon or Dauphine street, which you might want to avoid if you are a light sleeper or request if you want the party action that encourages. High ceilings and a fairly spacious layout, not to mention that proximity to Bourbon, make this a potentially well-priced (if slightly generic) choice, already popular among business groups for its meeting rooms and location. At the Canal Street entrance is a newly erected statue of Ignatius Reilly, hero of A Confederacy of Dunces, whom we first met when he was waiting, as all of New Orleans once did, "under the clock" -- the old Holmes clock, now located in a bar, was for decades the favored rendezvous point for tout New Orleanians.

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's New Orleans 2009, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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