Origin Hotel Baton Rouge, a Wyndham Hotel

Origin Hotel Baton Rouge, a Wyndham Hotel, opened in January 2024 in downtown Baton Rouge, an 87-room boutique lifestyle hotel with a rooftop deck and an all-day Cajun-Creole restaurant. It is a conversion rather than a new build. The five-story building at the corner of Saint Ferdinand Street and North Boulevard went up in 1955 as the Baton Rouge Savings & Loan Association, later served as a school and, most recently, as a Holiday Inn Express. Tandem Hospitality Group and The Thrash Group, in partnership with Benson Capital Partners, led the restoration, with the interiors by the design studio Ferriss & Company. The official ribbon cutting took place on 17 January 2024, after a soft opening the week before. The building's banking past is the thread that runs through the design, from the lobby to the room details.

The place

101 St. Ferdinand Street, downtown Baton Rouge, at the corner of North Boulevard.

The hotel sits beside the Downtown Greenway, a three-mile walking and cycling path linking parks, offices and boutiques, and close to the Mississippi River and its 13-mile levee trail. The fourth-floor terrace looks over the downtown library, the Old State Capitol, North Boulevard Town Square and the live oaks lining North Boulevard, with a bird's-eye view of Tiger Stadium, so the address works for LSU football weekends as well as for a city break. Live blues venues and bayou swamp tours are among the outings the hotel's concierge service steers guests toward. Valet parking, with in-and-out privileges, is available for guests arriving by car, and the property is dog-friendly.

The concept

A boutique lifestyle hotel built around Louisiana design references, with a rooftop deck offering downtown views and a retail area, Sweet Baton Rouge, featuring local products.

Ferriss & Company blended what remained of the 1955 bank with mid-century modern elements, art deco lines, contemporary patterns and deep jewel tones. Bankers' lamps and leather-trimmed headboards nod to the original use, pneumatic tube canisters from the bank hang as wall art, and tiger-striped carpeting in the corridors and jewel-toned tiger wallpaper in the bathrooms are a wink at Louisiana State University and its Tigers. The 87 rooms come with a Nespresso machine, a mini-fridge and a praline welcome treat. A set of specialty bunk suites sleeps six to eight, and a pair of LSU-themed rooms are named after Joe Burrow and Pete Maravich.

Beyond the rooms, the hotel offers 1,740 square feet of event space split across three venues: the Payne meeting room (50 guests), the Bon Temps dining room (25) and the Eye in the Sky rooftop deck (35). A 24-hour fitness center sits on the fourth floor, and Wyndham Rewards members and direct bookers get perks such as discounts at local retailers and late check-out.

Dining & wellness

An all-day Cajun-Creole restaurant, Passé All Day Café, occupies the ground floor and serves breakfast, lunch and dinner under executive chef Denise Williams. The menu reads Cajun and Creole classics with a French twist: Catfish Origin (fried, grilled or blackened catfish over crawfish etouffee), shrimp remoulade and a fried oyster Caesar salad.

A coffee kiosk and a hotel bar with cocktails, wine and beer share the ground floor. Upstairs, the fourth-floor rooftop bar and wraparound terrace, called Eye in the Sky, gives the hotel its drinks-with-a-view address over the downtown skyline. Guests who book direct receive a discount at the restaurant.