What The Eliza Jane Gets Right About New Orleans
New Orleans has plenty of hotels that perform the city at you. This one lets the building do the talking, which is a harder trick.
In 1876 a widow inherited a failing penny paper and a mountain of debt, and everyone waited for her to sell it. She didn't. Eliza Jane Nicholson became the first woman to publish a major American daily, ran The Daily Picayune for eighteen years, and turned it into an institution. Then she died at forty-seven, nine days after her husband, in a flu epidemic.
The hotel is named after her. Which is a nice gesture, except that almost nobody who books it knows any of that, and the building doesn't explain itself.
The Property
The Eliza Jane sits at 315 Magazine Street in the Central Business District, two blocks off the French Quarter, close enough to walk into the noise and far enough to leave it. The building is actually nine buildings. Nineteenth-century warehouses, including the old Daily Picayune headquarters, kept separate on the street and stitched together on the inside.
You can see the seams and that's on purpose. Stonehill Taylor did the design and left the original brick and the ceiling beams exposed where they could. The lobby atrium runs sixty feet up under a skylight, greenery everywhere, a glass canopy bar underneath, antique rugs, brass lamps. It reads like a conservatory somebody put a hotel inside.
There's a lending library. There is also, in the 2,000-square-foot courtyard, a black-and-white tiled fountain with a neon sign over it that says Bisous and a Venus sculpture by local artist Brent Barnidge. Nobody tells you why. New Orleans rarely does.
The hotel spent years as part of Hyatt's Unbound Collection. In spring 2026 it moved to Marriott's Autograph Collection, still run by Makeready, still the same building and the same staff. If you were sitting on Hyatt points for this one, that ship has left.
The Room
The Editor's Suite is 690 square feet, which in a converted warehouse means the ceilings go up and the windows go all the way down. Floor-to-ceiling in the bedroom, facing the city.
It's a real suite, not a big room with a chair in it:
Separate living room with a sleeper sofa. Green velvet, red cushions, a pink armchair that should not work with either and does.
Bedroom behind it. King bed, ink-colored leather headboard, 55-inch TV on a walnut console that nobody in this room is going to turn on.
Full wet room bathroom. Double vanity, gold fixtures, a freestanding tub set by a window with the light coming across it. Dual shower heads. If you've seen photos of this hotel, you've seen that tub, and the tub is doing a lot of the marketing.
Sleeps three with the sofa.
The practical stuff, since nobody else bothers to list it. Mini-fridge, Keurig with coffee and tea, in-room safe, iron, hair dryer, plush robes, free wifi.
Brass and walnut and florals throughout. The design keeps quoting the building at you without ever putting it in a caption.
The Publisher's Suite down the hall is twenty square feet bigger at 710 and shares the same bathroom. If both are open, take whichever floor is higher.
The Amenities
The Press Room is the lobby bar, and it leans into the newspaper thing without being cute about it. Craft cocktails, coffee in the morning, small plates, happy hour Tuesday through Saturday. There's live music from local players on Friday and Saturday nights.
The courtyard is the property's real amenity. Spanish-influenced, arched passageways connecting it to the restaurant, antiques scattered through, plenty of places to sit. In a city where most hotels shove you back onto the street, having somewhere to go that isn't your room or a bar matters more than you'd think.
There's a fitness center. There is no pool and no spa.
The Food
Couvant is the restaurant, a French-inspired brasserie, and it sits inside what used to be the Peychaud's bitters factory. If you have ever had a Sazerac, you have had Peychaud's. The building made the bitters. Now it makes dinner.
The program runs Gulf seafood, beignets in the morning, a wine night on Tuesdays, and the bar does happy hour alongside the Press Room. Breakfast is served there.
The Prices
Standard rooms run in the mid-to-upper range for the CBD and the signature suites sit meaningfully above that, with rates swinging hard by season. New Orleans pricing is event-driven, and Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest, and Essence weekend will double what you'd pay in August. Book against the calendar, not the month.
It's an Autograph Collection property now, so Bonvoy points earn and redeem here, and it sits in Marriott's Category 5.
Who's It For
People who want the French Quarter without sleeping in it. You are two blocks from the noise and the hotel is genuinely quiet, which is the specific trick this location pulls off.
Also for anyone who likes a building with a past that hasn't been sanded off. If you want a pool, a spa, and a resort footprint, this is the wrong hotel and there are three others within walking distance that will do it for you.
Eliza Jane Nicholson wrote poetry under a pen name because women in 1870 were not supposed to have opinions in print. Her name is on the door now and there's a neon sign in the courtyard telling you to kiss someone. She'd probably have found that funny.
Notes
Address: 315 Magazine St, New Orleans, LA 70130
Reservations:theelizajane.com | (504) 882-1234 | Marriott Bonvoy
Rates: Vary widely by season and event calendar. Signature suites, including the Editor's Suite, sit at the top of the range.
Rooms: 196 total, 50 suites, 12 signature suites
Food and drink:Couvant (French brasserie) and The Press Room (lobby bar)
Brand:Marriott's Autograph Collection as of spring 2026, previously The Unbound Collection by Hyatt. Operated by Makeready.
Instagram: @theelizajanenola
About the Author
Kelly Gomez is a creative director who eats well, travels far, and lives with intention. She has sat at tables that required months of planning, flown routes that cross a dozen time zones, and found herself in rooms most people never find. She is precise about what she loves and honest about what falls short.
A WSET Level 2 Wine Certified writer and Advanced Open Water Diver, Kelly covers luxury travel, hotels, fine dining, wineries, diving destinations, and the trips built around them.
Her work reaches a US-based audience of travelers between 25 and 44, with a near-even gender split and a meaningful following.
