Maison Blanche is perhaps best
remembered for introducing the locally popular Mr. Bingle
Christmas mascot and for its landmark flagship store on Canal
Street. It was founded in 1897 by Isidore Newman, an
immigrant from Germany.
Maison Blanche was acquired in 1923 by
City Stores Company, which merged Maison Blanche with
Loveman's in 1950. City Stores Co. filed for bankruptcy in
July 1979. While in bankruptcy, they initially intended to
consolidate the seven Maison Blanche stores with four B.
Lowenstein's stores in Memphis, Tennessee to form the Maison
Blanche Department Stores group, but in early 1982 the Memphis
stores were shuttered.
Instead, three of the seven existing
Maison Blanche stores, as well as the name, were purchased by
Goudchaux's, Inc. of Baton Rouge, owned by the Sternberg
brothers. (Goudchaux's should not be confused with Godchaux's,
a specialty store based in New Orleans). Operating as
Goudchaux/Maison Blanche, the new company eventually reopened
the original Canal Street flagship in 1984, leasing
three floors from the new owners.
In the late 1980s, two Florida based
retail chains were purchased allowing the
company to enter the
fast growing Florida market. In 1987 Goudchaux/Maison Blanche
acquired the ten-unit Robinson's of Florida on Florida's Gulf
Coast from May Department Stores; in 1988 they also bought the
five-unit Jacksonville-based "May Florida" (formerly May
Cohens) from May. The Goudchaux name was dropped at this time
and all the stores were renamed Maison Blanche. But the rapid
expansion coupled with the oil-related recession in Louisiana
proved to be too much for the company to manage, and in 1991
Maison Blanche sold eight west and central Florida stores to
Dillard's, leaving it with eight Louisiana stores and eight
Florida stores.
Maison Blanche was purchased by
Mercantile Stores Inc. in February 1992 as a 16-store
unit. The eight Louisiana stores continued to operate
under the Maison Blanche name, until Mercantile Stores was
acquired by Dillard's in 1998. Dillard's subsequently closed
the Canal Street store after briefly operating it. The
acquisition of Maison Blanche came nearly a decade after
Dillard's had purchased another New Orleans area retail
institution and Canal Street landmark — D.H.
Holmes.
Maison Blanche's original building was
on Canal Street. This was demolished around 1908. A
distinctive new building, which still stands, was constructed
around 1908–1909. At one time there were many medical and
dental offices in the top floors; later they became largely
empty.
The Canal Street store was closed in
1982 by the City Stores Company and reopened in 1984. In 1997
work began to use the upper floors as part of a new
Ritz-Carlton hotel. The original plan was for the lower floors
to continue to operate as a Maison Blanche department store.
However, after Dillard's acquired the store with the purchase
of the remainder of the Maison Blanche chain, they closed the
Canal Street store. The whole building, along with the
neighboring Kress building, is now part of the New Orleans
Ritz Carlton, which had a grand opening on October 6,
2000.
The hotel was occupied during and
immediately after Hurricane Katrina. It suffered considerable
damage; for example the basement was flooded and the
electrical systems, laundry, and staff cafeteria, among other
things, were damaged. The Ritz-Carlton reopened on December 4,
2006, after a $106 million
refurbishment..
