NEW ORLEANS – An Uptown New Orleans bed-and-breakfast that bills itself as a “clothing optional guest house” with a heated indoor swimming pool and two hot tubs, has sold for $817,000.

Sellers’ agent Ben Jacobson said the new owners probably will keep the property as a B&B, but he doesn’t know whether the new owners plan to keep that option, or how they plan to run it, New Orleans CityBusiness (http://bit.ly/1rOck7d) reported.

Anthony Posey, the buyers’ agent, declined comment for the article.

The Dive Inn website claims testimonials from actor Dennis Quaid and musician Eric Burdon, lead singer of the Animals.

It quotes Burdon as saying, “One of my favourite places to stay in New Orleans. In fact, you could say that Dive Inn turns me into an animal!” and Quaid as saying, “This place is awesome. It feels just like old New Orleans.”

The 8,500-square-foot property has been open as the Dive Inn. Its website states, “If you book a group into the Dive, you make your own rules.”

Corporate Realty listed the building in March for $880,000.

After running a B&B for about 20 years, the owners were ready to move on, Jacobson said.

“It was originally bought as a private residence that the owner was working to fix up,” he said. “They rented out rooms here and there as a way to help pay off the mortgage, and it eventually evolved into the clothing-optional B&B.”

According to the B&B’s website, the site once held a Creole cottage built about 1847 and an early Victorian double, but the Mexican counsel built the property in 1920 and tore down all the double and all but four rooms of the cottage to build a gym for his family. In 1927, he built a ceramic tile pool with a dome over it. One of his daughters lived in that property until 1972, when it was sold as an indoor scuba diving school.