Louis Seelbach and his brother Otto emigrated from Frankenthal, Germany, a small, rural town in Bavaria.

The restaurant's success and Louisville's quickly expanding population and economy allowed him to bring his brother Otto from Germany to help open the first Seelbach Hotel in 1891 above the bar & grill at 6th and Main.

They formed the Seelbach Hotel Co[7] and purchased a piece of property at the corner of 4th and Walnut (now Muhammad Ali Boulevard) streets.

[9] Since then, Louisville has expanded, and the Seelbach Hotel has long been astride one of the city's booming shopping and business districts.

[citation needed] Many US presidents have chosen to spend time at the hotel while in Louisville, including William Howard Taft (1911), Woodrow Wilson (1916), Franklin D. Roosevelt (1938), Harry Truman (1948), John F. Kennedy (1962), Lyndon B. Johnson (1964), Jimmy Carter (1970s), Bill Clinton (1998), and George W. Bush (2002).

[28] Lucky Luciano, Dutch Schultz, and Al Capone—who was a frequent guest of the Seelbach—stayed at the hotel, often for clandestine poker games.

One story from the 1920s involves Capone sneaking out through a series of secret stairways and tunnels when Louisville police broke up one of these games.

[29] Hotel staff are frequently eager to show the Al Capone room (if it is unoccupied) and give its history.

The Rolling Stones, Whitney Houston, Elvis Presley, Billy Joel, Robin Williams, Russell Crowe, Julia Child, Wolfgang Puck, Donnie Wahlberg, Shorty Rossi, and reality TV personality of Pit Boss are among the celebrities who have stayed at the Seelbach.

[31] This experience seemingly did not tarnish his memories, as he later included a fictional hotel akin to the Seelbach as the setting for the wedding of Tom and Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby.

[36] The Rathskellar, decorated with Rookwood Pottery, was a rare and distinctively Seelbach south-German influenced restaurant.

Coming from German, the term "Rathskeller" means "council's cellar", and is a common name in German-speaking countries that refers to a bar or restaurant located in the basement of a city hall (Rathaus).

There is a cocktail named after the hotel, called the Seelbach, which contains bourbon, triple sec, and two kinds of bitters, and topped with a brut sparkling wine or champagne.