Call it a twist on state-of-the-art hotels. More and more properties are popping up throughout the South featuring curated collections of modern masterpieces. These galleries with guest rooms let planners sculpt memorable meetings that reach new heights in Southern hospitality.
The properties provide a palette of local, regional, and international art blended with architecture, five-star cuisine, wine, culture, and history. Many schedule rotating exhibits and special arts events, crafting a new immersive experience with every visit.
So spectacular is the art on display at the following Southern museum-hotels that five of them earned a spot on the Historic Hotels of America’s 2022 list of the Top 25 Most Magnificent Art Collections.
21c Museum Hotels
The best-known museum-hotel brand began as an effort to preserve and revitalize downtown Louisville, Ky. Louisville is the hometown of preservationists, philanthropists, and contemporary art collectors Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, and the city became the site of their first 21c Museum Hotel, fittingly located on downtown’s Museum Row. Their hotels—10 so far—have been called “multivenue contemporary art museums.”
Brown and Wilson believe in the power of art to generate positive change, spark conversations, and enrich travel. Each 21c Museum Hotel reflects that vision with permanent art collections and rotating exhibitions from around the world. Each property is a combination art museum, boutique hotel,
and chef-driven restaurant.
The properties’ art collections often include engaging elements. Visitors to 21c’s Louisville location, for example, can immerse themselves in an interactive digital installation entitled Text Rain. Artists Camille Utterback and Romy Achituv created the video projection in which letters rain down on a screen and viewers can magically catch the text, lifting and playing with it.
Even the Louisville hotel’s restaurant, Proof on Main, is an immersive artwork. Its unique atmosphere stems from The Practices of Every Day Lives created by Fallen Fruit. The artists used wallpaper, paintings, prints, historical images, personal diaries, amateur film, and architectural salvage yard objects to design a fanciful environment from everyday items.
Guests at 21c Louisville can stay in a commissioned space. The site-specific sculptural installation Asleep in the Cyclone by Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe is a fully functional hotel room combining colorful architectural collages in a multilevel space. The resulting parallel-reality experience is enhanced by music, books, and a cabinet
of curiosities.
The majority of 21c Museum Hotels are located in the South, including Bentonville, Ark.; Durham, N.C.; Kansas City, Mo.; Lexington and Louisville, Ky.; Nashville, Tenn.; and Oklahoma City, Okla. The chain’s 10th and newest hotel is taking reservations for this summer in St. Louis, Mo. The hotel is set in a nearly century-old restored 10-story Renaissance Revival-style building that formerly housed a YMCA.
“At 21c, we want our guests and visitors—everyone who walks through our doors—to see themselves and their culture represented and to discover new faces and places through contemporary art,” says Alice Gray Stites, the hotel brand’s museum director and chief curator. “The 21c collection includes works by both emerging and internationally celebrated artists from every continent. … We also always have works by regional and local artists on view in every property.”
Artists are commissioned to create works that fit the space, site, and architecture of each individual property, Stites says. Depending on the 21c property, guests can find themselves viewing fiber optic tapestries or an orange “basketball tree.” The permanent collections include 21st-century art, from multimedia experiences to augmented and virtual reality, paintings, sculptures, photographs, films, and videos.
Rotating exhibits feature works that travel among the 21c hotels. The traveling exhibitions sometimes change as they move, keeping them relevant, fresh, and new at each property.
The 21c properties offer unique venues for unforgettable events, from weddings to corporate meetings. Exhibition and event spaces range from 7,000 square feet in Lexington to 14,000 square feet in Oklahoma City.
Four Seasons Hotel Nashville
Even among the glut of glitz in Music City, Four Seasons Hotel Nashville stands out through its art and architecture. The $40 million Tennessee hotel opened last November with a collection highlighting established and emerging artists from Tennessee and Germany.
The hotel’s art—on display in rooms, suites, corridors, and public spaces—was co-curated over the span of nearly two years by Barbara Lewis and Zélika García. Lewis owns Lewis Art Consulting, a Denver, Colo.-based firm known for selecting and placing artwork for high-profile clients. García is a leader in the art world and founder of a major art fair in Latin America.
Lewis describes the collection as “very contemporary.” The works pay homage to Tennessee’s natural beauty and Nashville’s famed music scene through photography, sculpture, canvas, and three-dimensional works.
The collection includes a large volume of works by German artist Gregor Hildebrandt. As an artist heavily influenced by music, Hildebrandt’s work is fitting for Music City. The contemporary conceptualist incorporates recording technology such as VHS and cassette tapes and vinyl records. The collection’s more than 700 exclusive reproductions from Hildebrandt serve as a tribute to Nashville’s musical roots.
“Music is not something you can see, and using the analog components and things that are physical … vinyl and tape and all the old stuff … [creates] artwork to make music visual,” Lewis says of Hildebrandt’s work. “He is a very well-known international artist, and that added a sense of sophistication to the collection. His art lends itself to a sense of place in a unique way that’s not in any other hotel in Nashville.”
The hotel structure also is a work of art. At 540 feet, it is one of the tallest buildings in Tennessee. Inside, it offers more than 25,000 square feet of event space, including two ballrooms, all with soaring ceilings and natural light.
“The building itself is spectacular,” Lewis notes. “At night, you can see the artwork from the street through the huge windows.”
Together, Four Seasons Hotel Nashville’s contemporary art and modern architecture provide both a complement and contrast to a city famed for the art of down-home country music.
“This is very sophisticated, impressive ambiance in the heart of Nashville on the river,” Lewis says. “The location, the views—there’s nothing else like it.”
The Kessler Collection
Want to take home some art? Visit The Kessler Collection boutique hotels, where art aficionados not only can view art, they also can buy it. Through special events, guests can mingle with local and international artists.
Each Kessler Collection hotel offers a world of inspiration, incorporating founder and CEO Richard C. Kessler’s passion for art, music, cuisine, culture, and design. The hotel brand was established 1984 to offer what it calls “visionary hospitality.” Paintings, sculptures, jewelry, and rare pieces are showcased throughout each hotel.
Dedicated art galleries are part of six Kessler Collection hotels located in Mountain Brook, Ala.; St. Augustine, Fla.; Savannah, Ga.; Asheville, N.C.; and Charleston and Greenville, S.C.
“The six gallery spaces have rotating exhibitions where everything is for sale,” says Kate Stanton, gallery director at Kessler Collection’s Grand Bohemian Hotel in Charleston, S.C. “There’s mini shows, and we’ve got jewelry trunk shows a couple of times a year. We have artist markets. Our schedule is packed.”
Each November, international artist Jean Claude Roy is a top attraction. Guests begin booking rooms in mid-summer for the painter’s annual tour when he travels from his home in France to visit the Kessler Collection galleries. Roy, known for his richly vivid landscapes, has a bold style described as expressionist-colorist.
“Jean Claude will come through each of the properties and stay on site,” Stanton explains. An opening reception is followed the next night by a five-course dinner with Roy, a popular event that usually sells out. “He’ll rotate tables for each course. You get to spend quiet time asking questions, and … he’ll sign paintings.”
Throughout the year, Stanton and her counterparts at Kessler’s other hotel galleries curate the art in their respective spaces, and exhibits are continually changing. “No matter when you come back, something will be different,” Stanton assures.
The Joule
A collection of salvaged mosaics is among the jewels of The Joule in Dallas, Texas. The Joule’s public spaces, ballrooms, and hallways showcase more than 70 large-scale mosaics by mid-century American artist Millard Sheets. The mosaics are intricate designs crafted of glass tiles from Murano, Italy. Originally commissioned in the 1940s for downtown Dallas’ former Mercantile Building, in 2012, the mosaics were saved from demolition by billionaire film producer and hotel owner Timothy Headington.
The mosaics are showstoppers in the 160-room boutique luxury hotel. The hotel’s philosophy is that art is best when shared. In that spirit, The Joule offers rotating displays of prized pieces from Headington’s personal art collection.
Named for a unit of energy measurement, The Joule is set in a restored 1920s neo-Gothic landmark building adjacent to the Dallas Arts District. The property touts that it artfully integrates historic preservation with contemporary design.
A sense of whimsy isn’t lost among the sophistication of the Forbes Four-Star hotel. Just look at The Eye. Dallas’ most unusual outdoor event space, The Eye is a turfed lawn surrounding artist Tony Tasset’s Eye, a 30-foot-tall sculpture of an eyeball. Like the mosaics, Eye first was located elsewhere—at Chicago’s Pritzker Park—and now is a permanent fixture at The Joule.
Planners can hold an event under the watchful Eye or in the hotel’s other spaces, including meeting rooms, a terrace, and three ballrooms, the largest of which is nearly 5,100 square feet and holds 400 guests.
The Inn at Price Tower
Famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s only fully realized skyscraper stands in downtown Bartlesville, Okla. A spectacular vision of copper and concrete, Wright originally intended the tower to grace the skyline of New York City. Fate and the Great Depression brought the building to Oklahoma, where Wright dubbed it “The Tree That Escaped the Crowded Forest,” a reference to the crowd of skyscrapers in Manhattan.
The 19-story Price Tower opened in 1956 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. Besides its artful architecture, the building houses the Price Tower Arts Center, which anchors the cantilevered structure and includes an art gallery. The center offers changing exhibits, workshops, events, and classes. A boutique hotel on seven upper floors allows guests to sleep in Wright’s unique creation.
Guided tours include a visit to the restored 19th-floor executive office of H.C. Price, the businessman who commissioned Wright to design the tower for his pipeline construction company headquarters and for whom the building is named. The H.C. Price Company Corporate Apartment also is available for tours.
Price Tower offers more than 4,600 square feet of extraordinary indoor event space—including the art gallery—and 550 square feet of private outdoor terraces, in addition to onsite catering. The views from the 11th-floor Silas Executive Conference Room and 15th-floor Fallingwater/Hillside Dining Room are spectacular.
Lord Baltimore Hotel
Built in 1928, the Lord Baltimore Hotel’s rich architectural details are enhanced by original works of art that adorn guest rooms and public spaces.
The classic grand hotel’s vast art collection was curated by owners Mera and Don Rubell, partners in Rubell Hotels, which bought the Lord Baltimore in 2013. The Rubells are among the top contemporary art collectors in the world and the founders of the Rubell Museum, with locations in Miami and Washington, D.C.
The downtown Baltimore, Md., hotel, offers an environment that surrounds guests with vintage and modern works. The lobby is adorned with oil paintings of historic figures, while a magnificent Murano glass chandelier hangs from the building’s original vaulted fresco ceiling. Other artistic splashes include abstract paintings by Herbert Hamak and Sabrina Baron (Mera Rubell’s sister), a Suzan Etkin multimedia piece in the hotel’s fitness center, and a print of a historic rendering of the Lord Baltimore Hotel from 1928.
In a project that takes its cue from an online search engine, Google-Inspired Portraits of Famous Baltimore People and Places, 2013 includes 15 unique prints that grace the hallways. The portraits provide a visual history of the city, with images of Billie Holiday, Maryland crab cakes, and other Charm City icons.
Blending food and art, the hotel introduced In Good Taste, a series of quarterly exhibitions of local artists’ work displayed in the hotel’s bakery. Following each exhibition, the artwork is moved to the hotel’s Artist Crown Suite for temporary display, after which the property purchases one piece to add to its permanent The Tribute to Good Taste Exhibition.
Twenty-one distinctive event rooms make up nearly 22,000 square feet of meeting space at the Lord Baltimore, including two ballrooms, a 100-seat theater, rooftop lounge, and speakeasy.
The Mayflower Hotel, Autograph Collection
The Mayflower Hotel, Autograph Collection in Washington, D.C., will celebrate its 100th birthday in 2025. But even with its century of hosting and famously historic name, The Mayflower is known for thoroughly modern art and creative keycards.
The property’s distinctive art results from a collaboration with local watercolor and ink illustrator Cris Clapp Logan. Logan’s original painting in the hotel’s promenade celebrates the property’s rich history and the famous and glamorous people who have graced its halls.
Logan also collaborated with The Mayflower to design room keycards that honor its storied past. The keycards, with their vividly colorful pop-art aesthetic, are emblazoned with stylized portraits of some of the hotel’s notable guests, from Walt Disney to Sophia Loren, Duke Ellington, and Woodrow Wilson.
Attendees can feel presidential in The Mayflower’s nearly 43,000 square feet of recently restored gathering space, including the 7,656-square-foot gilded Grand Ballroom, the site of numerous Presidential Inaugural Balls. The ornate 2,600-square-foot Chinese Room is embellished with gilt wreaths and Chinoiserie-styled paintings and was inspired by another work of art: James McNeill Whistler’s The Peacock Room.
The Virginian Hotel, Curio Collection by Hilton
The Virginian Hotel, Curio Collection by Hilton is located in a landmark building in downtown Lynchburg, Va., that was constructed in 1913. After a 21st-century renovation, four paintings by Kevin Chadwick were commissioned to complement the hotel. The local artist specializes in capturing the beauty of the rhythms and energies of everyday Southern life.
As an homage to the hotel’s Beaux-Arts style design, each of Chadwick’s paintings follow the hotel’s color palette while mimicking the style of the Roaring Twenties and featuring noteworthy Lynchburg residents.
Among the hotel’s most unusual and intriguing art is a collection of caricature-style portraits of famous people with ties to Virginia, including Edgar Allan Poe, who was raised in Richmond, and Ella Fitzgerald, who was born in Newport News.
Guests can browse and purchase art in the hotel’s gallery. The property offers six unique gathering spaces totaling 8,615 square feet of event space, including the fully restored 4,000-square-foot Grand Ballroom
