First Look: Copper Vine Wine Pub & Inn Opens in New Orleans

1001 Poydras Street was once home to one of the most iconic—and second-oldest—restaurants in New Orleans, Maylie’s. For 110 years, the bar and market restaurant served up Creole classics like daube glacé, bouilli, and crab stew to hungry businessmen in the downtown commercial district. Since Maylie’s closed in 1986, various restaurants came in and out of the storied building. From across the street, Kyle Brechtel dreamed of reviving the space for a community-centric spot. 

“I would stare out of the window imagining the space as a wine gastropub that I had been working on,” says Brechtel, the president and chief executive officer of Brechtel Hospitality. In 2018, he saw a chance to acquire the property and leaped at it, opening Copper Vine, an all-day public house. This year, he partnered with Studio West to start a new chapter: a companion inn that would pare down the non-historic architectural additions and permit the building’s original sense of character to shine. 

Here’s an exclusive look inside the inn, which opened for booking this week.

The warmly lit facade of French doors; the guest check-in.

The inn is a stone’s throw from streets of art galleries, but the guest rooms themselves (pictured at left) are living art spaces. Jennie West combed through southern Louisiana–inspired prints from textile maker Pavy, picking out the rippling Stormy Waters pattern for pairs of light linen curtains. “We worked directly with Cathi Pavy to color-match the block printing to a custom copper clay to compliment the green inn rooms,” West says.

The work of Southern artists (pictured left) adorn the walls. In this cozy spot, paintings by Atlanta’s Heather Bird Harris (left) and New Orleans–based artist Ida Floreak share a corner. “I instantly gravitated to Harris’s use of sediment and soils as pigment,” West says. Floreak’s altar-like paintings balance a reverence for the natural world with an air of mysticism, alluding to the city’s otherworldly side. “Her hints of smoke and symbolism add a touch of the spirit world.”

Russet tones from hand-laid tile, copper fixtures, and rust-colored sediment in Harris’s abstract work complement green trim.

This attic-turned-suite is Brechtel’s favorite room. Formerly used as an office, the space was one of the most difficult but rewarding aspects of the renovation. Restoring a previously removed dormer window offered a chance to craft a bird’s eye view of Copper Vine’s courtyard and the New Orleans cityscape.

The suite’s newly added bathing room.

Bedside details; Studio West worked in 3-D models and renderings to map out millwork projects throughout the property, including shelving, wine storage, bed headboards, guest room bars, and storage closets. Local makers refined the cherry and copper designs, like the unpacking shelf seen here.

The original courtyard was built in the 1950s and now features a blend of native plants alongside larger tropicals. “We wanted to design a space that offers a place for pollinators to come as well as larger-leafed tropical plants to give you a sense of escape in the city,” says Stephen Luna of Luna Botanicals, Copper Vine’s landscape architect and garden installer. In the indoor extension of the courtyard, a custom mural from local painter Mary Singleton brings the forms of the broad-leafed greenery into the interior.

A perch on the balcony; Cajun caviar deviled eggs.

“The original oak bar from Maylie’s restaurant has been altered over time but still has a sense of a storied past” West says. “It is the backbone of the wine pub, and as part of the renovation, we carefully illuminated and refreshed the back bar with increased glass and liquor options.”

Beignets and an espresso martini.