Est. 2014 · New Orleans
The room is half the meal
I design hotels, restaurants and bars across the South - rooms tuned to candlelight, built to be described to strangers the next morning.
The record
The practice in numbers
What the work adds up to so far.
10 rooms opened 5 cities 1,900 seats and keys 12 years at it
Counted in August 2026, between an install and an opening night.
Selected projects
The rooms
Six of the ten, chosen the way you would choose off a menu - by appetite.
I
The Pelican Room 2023
A supper club in a Bywater icehouse - velvet booths, pleated lamps and a stage the room pretends not to watch.
II
Hotel Beaulieu 2025
A 34-key hotel in a dry-goods warehouse - brick, limewash and a lobby bar that outdraws the courtyard.
III
Maison Verret 2024
A Creole bistro rebuilt to look untouched - zinc, bentwood and a checkered floor worth fighting over.
IV
Cane & Hour 2024
A rooftop bar over the CBD - cane, terracotta and festoon light, engineered to survive the weather.
V
Hotel Camellia 2022
An eighteen-key inn in Natchez, rewound rather than renovated - shutters, plaster and lamplight.
VI
Salt Meadow 2021
A ninety-seat dining room over the marsh at Bay St. Louis - whitewash, linen and storm lanterns.
The designer
Delphine Arceneaux
I design rooms for people to be looked after in.
I started out painting scenery - Mardi Gras floats, then theater flats - which is where you learn that a room is a machine for producing a particular kind of evening. I still design that way: decide what 8pm should feel like, then choose the plaster, the leather and the lamps that will hold it.
Since 2014 the studio has opened ten rooms across five cities. Owners mostly come to me with their second or third place - a lease, a chef and a worry - and we leave with a dining room their regulars describe to strangers.
- Trained Scenic painting, then set design
- First room A po'boy counter on Magazine Street, 2014
- Based Warehouse District, New Orleans
- Keeps A matchbook from every opening night
- Delphine
Services
The menu
Every fee is a starting point, priced properly after the walkthrough.
Restaurants & bars
- The whole room From $85,000
Concept to opening night: plans, finishes, furniture, lighting and the trades held to the drawings.
- The refresh From $30,000
Your room, retuned in six weeks - seating, finishes and light levels, no walls moved, closed as briefly as possible.
- The bar only From $22,000
The most watched twelve feet of any room, designed like it knows it.
Hotels & inns
- Guest rooms and suites From $60,000
A room type designed once, detailed to survive being built forty times.
- Lobby, bar and breakfast From $70,000
The three rooms that decide the review, designed as one evening that starts at check-in.
- The concept study $4,800
Two weeks of drawings and references before you sign the lease - what the space could be, and what it would really cost.
Fees cover design; the build is priced by your contractor against the drawings. Travel beyond the South is billed at cost.
The process
Order of service
Five courses, first call to opening night.
First
The walkthrough One evening
We meet in the space at night, when it tells the truth, and talk about the evening the room is supposed to produce.
Second
Concept Three weeks
Drawings, references, a palette and a budget honest enough to argue with.
Third
Documentation Six to eight weeks
The full set the trades build from - plans, finishes, fixtures, and a schedule that names every knob and lamp.
Fourth
The build By the room
Site visits at the moments that matter: first fix, finishes, and the week everything arrives at once.
Fifth
Opening night One long day
Styling, light levels at 2700K, and the last hundred small decisions, done before the first party is seated.
Details
Up close
The small decisions the wide shots skip.
The details
Edges, seams and surfaces - where the budget actually went.
8 frames
Kind words
From the owners
Hotel Beaulieu, New Orleans
Delphine asked what hour our lobby was busiest and designed for that hour. Guests photograph the bar more than the courtyard, which nobody expected but her.
Marguerite Chase Owner, Hotel BeaulieuMaison Verret, French Quarter
She fought me on the checkered floor for two weeks and she was right. The room reads like it has always been there, which in this neighborhood is the whole game.
Antoine Verret Chef-ownerSalt Meadow, Bay St. Louis
We seat ninety on a Saturday and the room still feels calm. She tuned the lighting so carefully that our phone photos look like the scouting shots.
Dana Rowell Co-owner, Salt MeadowCane & Hour, New Orleans
The rooftop came in on budget because her drawings left nothing to interpretation. Our contractor asked who did them, then hired her for his own bar.
Marcus Ellery Managing partnerNotices
In print
Visit
Sit in the work
Every project on this site is open for business - walk in and judge the room yourself.
-
The Pelican Room New Orleans
Supper club - ask for the corner booth, table 12
Open Thu to Sun Book a table
The owners know you might come for the room. Order well anyway.
Questions
Asked at the first meeting
Do you work outside New Orleans?
We already have an architect. What do you do?
Can you work with what we own?
How far ahead should we call?
Will it photograph well?
The book holds four rooms a year.
Every project gets me, not a junior - which caps the calendar. If you have an opening date in mind, ask early rather than well.
Ask about the last slot3 of 4
Rooms taken for 2027
One room left in the book for fall 2027, then it closes until spring.
Start here
Tell me about the opening
The kind of place, the city and the month you want doors open - I answer with first thoughts and a fee range.
Noted in the book. You will hear back within two working days with first thoughts and a fee range.
Or write directly
[email protected]- Studio 14 Tchoupitoulas Street
- Hours Tue to Fri, 9 to 6
- Replies Within two working days
Bring the floor plan, the lease and the worst photo of the space you have. The worst one tells the truth.