The Hermitage Hotel ★★★★★

A Painted Glass Ceiling, and the Summer Tennessee Decided

J.E.R. Carpenter came home from the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and built this in 1910, and the lobby is still the argument for the whole hotel: a painted glass ceiling floating thirty feet above a marble floor, recessed panels carrying mythological figures and the double H of the house. Ten years later the room filled with lobbyists. Carrie Chapman Catt took a suite here for six weeks in the summer of 1920 while Tennessee debated the Nineteenth Amendment, both campaigns worked the same corridors, and when the vote carried the telegrams arrived at this address. The building is now a National Historic Landmark, and it wears it lightly.

Why It Works

Grand old American hotels usually go one of two ways: frozen, or gutted. The Hermitage has managed neither. The recent restoration lightened the wall colours so the plasterwork reads again, put modern bathrooms behind period doors, and left the strange and wonderful things alone. Around that, the house runs at a scale of 122 rooms, which is small enough that the staff recognise you by the second morning. And the kitchen is not an afterthought: Drusie and Darr is a reason to come downstairs even if you are staying elsewhere.

Why This Location

The hotel stands on 6th Avenue North, one block south of the Tennessee State Capitol, in the quiet civic quarter rather than the entertainment one. Broadway and the Ryman Auditorium are a walk of a few minutes, which is exactly the right relationship to have with them: close enough to go, far enough that the noise does not follow you back. The sit in sites of the civil rights movement are within the same few blocks, and the Frist Art Museum and the Country Music Hall of Fame are both walkable.

Fast Facts

• Price: Luxury

• Vibe: Beaux Arts, Southern, composed, quietly grand

• Rooms: 122 rooms and suites, lightened and rebuilt in the recent restoration

• Best For: couples, history minded travellers, anyone in Nashville for more than the honky tonks

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: the 1930s men's room downstairs, green and black Art Deco tile with its shoeshine stand, and the pink marble women's room built to answer it

• Dining: Drusie and Darr, designed by Thomas Juul-Hansen and run under Jean-Georges Vongerichten, plus the Oak Bar off the lobby

• Amenities: National Historic Landmark building, painted glass lobby ceiling, valet parking, private event rooms

• Attractions: Tennessee State Capitol one block north, the Ryman Auditorium and Broadway a short walk, the Frist Art Museum nearby

The Rooms After the Restoration

ForrestPerkins handled the interiors, and the decision that matters is the palette: paler walls, so the cornices, mouldings and door cases stop disappearing into the paint. Rooms vary with the shape of an early twentieth century building, which means real variation in size and outlook rather than a floor of identical boxes. Suites face the Capitol or the city. If the point of the stay is the building, ask for a room on a higher floor with the original proportions intact.

Downstairs, Where the Hotel Keeps Its Best Rooms

Drusie and Darr occupies the lower level, named for a former general manager's children, redesigned by Thomas Juul-Hansen and operating under Jean-Georges Vongerichten. The Oak Bar sits off the lobby and is the better place for a quiet drink before dinner. And then there is the men's room, a 1930s Art Deco survivor in green and black tile that has been photographed more than most hotel suites, now paired with a pink marble women's room commissioned to match its confidence.

Before You Book

This is a civic quarter address, which means weekday mornings are busy with the Capitol and weekends are calmer than Broadway. Parking downtown is valet rather than self park. Rooms differ genuinely from one another, so it is worth asking rather than taking the category as read, and the suites go early around the big music weeks.