A long-vacant hotel on Grand Isle is one step closer to being listed in the National Register of Historic Places as a nonprofit works on plans to restore it as a visitors’ center, museum and community space. The building also serves as an example of historic architecture that has become rare on the barrier island.
During its April meeting, Louisiana’s National Register Review Committee unanimously recommended the Oleander Hotel be listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
The nomination was prepared by Allyson Hinz, a recent graduate student in Tulane School of Architecture and Built Environment’s Historic Preservation program. She is now working to revise the nomination after the meeting. Once that happens, it will be forwarded to the National Park Service , which decides if the building will be listed.
The 30-room Oleander Hotel opened in April 1929 before there was even a road that led to Grand Isle. (Anyone who wanted to access the island took a ferry.) It is the sole survivor of several hotel and resort buildings of that era that once dotted the island.
“Despite some physical alterations, the Oleander Hotel retains sufficient integrity to convey its historical and architectural significance — an architectural style now scarce due to frequent strong tropical storms in the area,” minutes from the committee read.
The hotel once had a large gallery and porch on its gulf-facing facade with windows on all sides to catch sea breezes for ventilation.
“The Oleander Hotel serves as a unique and preserved snapshot of its time, specific to Louisiana Gulf Coast architecture. It illustrates both the challenges posed by natural forces and the community’s adaptive responses, highlighting the evolution of coastal vernacular practices on Grand Isle,” the minutes read.
It remains unclear when the hotel went out of business, but all indications are that it was sometime in the 1990s.
TJ Augustine, a partial owner, spoke in favor of the National Register nomination. Restore Grand Isle, a nonprofit, is raising money to buy and renovate the building with an estimated cost of $2 million to complete that work.
Listing in the National Register has several benefits in Louisiana, including opening opportunities for financial assistance in the form of tax credits, certain protections from federally funded projects, and national prestige.
