Everybody swipes stuff from hotels: those cute little bars of soap, the disposable shower cap, bath towels, souvenir matches and ash trays (back when everybody smoked, anyway). It’s a predictable act of small-time larceny.
But a silver candelabra?
The management of the 126-year-old Roosevelt New Orleans Hotel has discovered that way back in 1955, a patron purloined a four-armed candelabra that illuminated a table in the hotel’s renowned Blue Room nightclub. The sticky-fingered guest was the last person you might suspect, so she easily escaped detection for more than six decades — until she was turned in by her adoring granddaughter.
This all came out a few months back when the Roosevelt marketing department conceived a plan to call attention to the hotel’s long history. The Roosevelt called on past guests to temporarily return antique mementos in exchange for a chance to win a weeklong stay in the hotel’s luxurious Presidential Suite.
“We knew the public would have the great memorabilia,” said marketing manager Ryan Eugene of the project.
In no time, a swizzle stick, demitasse cup, room service coffee pot, tiny individual rum decanter, 1912 banquet menu, 1923 hand fan, 1946 room bill marked with the stunningly low nightly rate of $2.75, still-wrapped bar of soap from a 1956 honeymoon and dozens of other mementos appeared at the old Roosevelt, where they were put on display in a lobby case.
A vintage table decorated with photos of bygone cocktails that once stood in the hotel's storied Sazerac Bar was only the second most amazing artifact to turn up. The most amazing was the candelabra.
Fun-loving Margaret Houlihan Cigali was an original member of the Krewe of Venus, the first all-female group to parade during Carnival. According to her granddaughter Elizabeth Cigali Manshel, in 1955, grandma reigned as queen.
At the krewe’s masked ballet at the swanky Blue Room, Cigali wore a shimmering satin gown, with a bejeweled crown, mask, scepter and broad collar. Plus — and this is a crucial detail — a waist-length cape called a mantle. She was accompanied by her king and husband, Elton Cigali Sr., and her son Elton Jr.
For reasons not perfectly understood, the 39-year-old queen became especially enchanted with the hotel’s glinting candelabra. Based on the story of the evening that Margaret Cigali gleefully recounted for her granddaughter, she instructed her accomplice, Elton Jr., to wrap the candelabra in her cape to spirit it from the premises at the conclusion of the party. What happened to the candles is anyone’s guess.
Manshel suspects that grandma’s decision to abscond with the table decoration may have been in part inspired by Champagne.
A family photo shows Margie Cigali and her husband, Elton Cigali. For the Roosevelt's 125th anniversary celebration, former gusts were asked if they would return any items taken from the hotel for a chance to win a weeklong stay in the Presidential Suite. Margie Cigali swiped a candelabra from the Roosevelt Hotel when she was the queen of the Krewe of Venus in 1955.
The candelabra finally made its way back to the hotel when Manshel and sister Ashley Cigali Tyler presented it to Eugene. “We sat down in the Sazarac Bar and Elizabeth pulled it out of the bag, and I said, 'Wow,' like five times in a row,” Eugene said.
Maw-Maw Cigali, as she was known to her grandchildren, died in 2012. But her buoyant spirit lived on in the contraband candelabra. When Manshel heard about the Roosevelt’s call for memorabilia, she instantly offered the family treasure, knowing that Maw-Maw would approve and that the statute of limitations had certainly run out.
“She was always laughing and full of life,” Manshel said of her grandmother, whose parents were Irish and Italian immigrants. “She was always so fun to be with. She was the kind of grandma who taught you how to count by playing poker with you.”
Manshel, who named her daughter after the candelabra thief, said she had no idea what the object is worth in dollars but said in sentimental value, it’s priceless.
She is certain that Maw-Maw has been smiling down on the revelation of her long-ago criminal act and that she will be metaphysically present at 11 a.m. Thursday when contributors to the contest are invited to the Blue Room to inspect the hotel memorabilia and partake in refreshments. At noon, a winner of the weeklong hotel stay will be selected at random.
Eugene said the contest was not meant to encourage wanton hotel souvenir acquisition. He said he encourages guests to satisfy their collecting impulses in the gift shop. After the contest, the candelabra will be returned to its un-rightful owners.
