Southern Hotel
Historic restoration of the interior and exterior of a 42-room boutique hotel.
Category
Hospitality
Location
Covington, LA
Size
38,470 SF
Year
2014
Opened in 1907, the Southern Hotel in Covington originally served seasonal visitors escaping biting New England winters and stifling New Orleans summers. The hotel welcomed guests to the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain for six decades before closing in the sixties as a victim to changing travel patterns and shifting spatial demographics. In the years following, the building housed commercial tenants and St. Tammany Parish government offices before finally falling vacant in the years after Hurricane Katrina.
In 2011, new ownership recognized the inherent character and possibility of the building despite a severely aged façade and years of piecemeal interventions. Interior layouts drawn from historical Sanborn maps echo the original plan with adjustments for modern use. Outside, the team stripped away incongruous additions and replaced a hot tarmac parking lot with a lush interior courtyard, bounded by the addition of the hotel ballroom. Thoughtful relationships to the street and sidewalk activate the ground floor public spaces, which lift many guest rooms above the street level for privacy and views.
With expertise in both renovation and historic tax credits, Trapolin-Peer Architects worked closely with the owner to offset 40% of the construction costs with Louisiana and Federal subsidies to restore the gracious character of the original hotel.
Recognition for Southern Hotel