Dew Drop Inn Project Restores a Vital Piece of New Orleans’ Political and Musical History
When Curtis Doucette decided to purchase and restore the historic Dew Drop Inn in New Orleans, the developer was just as invested in the future of the space as he was in commemorating its past.
“Our goal is to continue the legacy of the Dew Drop Inn,” Doucette says. “The question that we ask ourselves is, if the Dew Drop Inn were uninterrupted spiritually, what would it be today? We really try to live that out.”
From the time Frank Painia opened the venue as a barbershop and restaurant in 1939 until his death in 1972, the Dew Drop Inn — the result of two buildings renovated into a single multipurpose complex — served as a communal hub and a cultural epicenter for politics, music and more in the Black community.
In addition to being listed in The Negro Motorist Green Book as a place where Black travelers could safely dine, the barbershop and restaurant eventually expanded to become a hotel and live music venue where pioneers such as Ray Charles and Little Richard performed. Because of the late-night jam sessions that often occurred at the hotel, the venue was often visited by the white residents of New Orleans too, frustrating city officials who were determined to uphold racial segregation.
The Dew Drop Inn continued to operate after Painia died, but the music venue closed in 1970. Its popularity had waned as civil rights laws and racial integration gave musicians and fans more venue options throughout the city. In 2005, the remaining hotel closed as a result of Hurricane Katrina.
In March 2024, nearly two decades after its closing, the Dew Drop Inn reopened. Efforts to restore the historic building weren’t easy or cheap.
Doucette learned about the venue in 2020 during the pandemic. Despite the fact that he typically worked on housing projects, the developer says it was “the history of the Dew Drop Inn [and] the affinity that the community had for the place” that intrigued him about the restoration project. And then there was “the civil rights history and the legacy of Black ownership and economic resilience. All of those things really appealed to me,” he says.
The inn was purchased from Kenneth Jackson, Painia’s grandson. Doucette says Jackson reinvested a part of his earnings from the sale into the project and currently remains involved as a partial owner.
In total, reopening the Dew Drop Inn cost about $11 million, including roughly $6 million in renovation costs, as well as the fees for operational consultants, architects, attorneys, and more. Doucette says his original estimates were half of this amount. ”I might be just the right fool to do it because once I’m into something, it’s really hard for me to quit,” he says, noting rising costs during the pandemic and inflation were partially to blame for the higher price tag.
Lawana Holland-Moore, director of fellowships and interpretive strategies at the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, says the organization awarded the inn $50,000 “to tell their story as one of the most significant music venues and Green Book-listed hotels in the South.”
Doucette says the investment from the Action Fund was used to turn the building’s former barbershop space into a museum that tells the story of Painia and the Dew Drop Inn through a chronological timeline. “I’m not exaggerating when I say this, those funds went toward the aspect of the project that is really the heart and soul,” he says. “Everyone who comes into the music venue has the opportunity to see that museum. And it’s really heartwarming to see how captivated people are when they see that.”
Since reopening, the space has once again hosted patrons in its boutique hotel rooms, served diners at an onsite restaurant, and held performances from New Orleans natives Irma Thomas and Big Freedia, as well as the singer, rapper and drummer Anderson .Paak. New Orleans’ Mayor LaToya Cantrell and a few former mayors have also visited the venue.
Visitors who book a stay in one of the hotel’s 17 rooms will step into a time capsule that honors the connection that local and national figures had to the Dew Drop Inn. Patrons can learn how attorney A.P. Tureaud worked to end segregation locally. Tureaud and fellow civil rights lawyer Dutch Morial sued the city on Painia’s behalf. Doucette says Painia and his patrons were sometimes subjected to raids and arrested for “race mixing.”
Tureaud and Morial, who eventually became the first Black mayor in New Orleans, have rooms dedicated to them. So do iconic performers Little Richard, Ray Charles, and Irma Thomas. Rock ’n’ roll fans might be surprised to know that the origins of Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” tie back to the inn. Or that local singer and Dew Drop Inn regular Thomas recorded “Time is on My Side” months before the Rolling Stones heard the song and decided to cover it.
In the four years since he first learned about and purchased the Dew Drop Inn, Doucette has gotten a crash course on an often forgotten part of the history of New Orleans, rock ’n’ roll, and Jim Crow. Now that the venue is open for business again, he’s excited to pass this knowledge on to anyone who visits.
“I always say that the Dew Drop Inn is a place where it seems that people have come to realize who they are and become who they were meant to be,” Doucette says. “I see that not just in musicians, but I see that in politicians, I see that in Frank himself, and I might even be starting to see that in myself.”
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