Urban Cowboy Hotel - Nashville, Tennessee
Parlor in Urban Cowboy Nashville. Photo by Nadia Sesay.
I hardly recall a time when my thought of jetting away to a foreign location was not paired with the automatic reaction of doing exactly so. Since COVID-19 however few pre-pandemic social habits, especially those that included international travel, remain. So much has changed in the outside world and also changed within ourselves. For me, these changes include my attachment to constant travel and the corollary of that feeling - a comfort being away from home.
What began as a mandated shuttering at home and led me without travel since March 28, 2020 (not that I was counting!), morphed into a state I begun to enjoy. As the days collided into weeks and months I re-discovered the joy of staying at home and, despite my love of boutique hotels, the bliss of sleeping in my own bed. Sweetly settled into my newfound domestic life however the opportunity for a getaway to Nashville arose. I was looking forward to being in an airplane once again although that feeling was tempered with the thought of separating from my home-cum-paradise.
This stay at Urban Cowboy however was worth leaving home for.
My first highlight is that the property is black & woman-owned. This piqued my interest in the hotel immediately.
Urban Cowboy is the name of a portfolio of hotels, with locations in the Catskills, Brooklyn and of course, Nashville. The hotel in East Nashville is the site of a former Victorian mansion. The owners kept the exterior architecture mostly unchanged so the mansion stands in grandeur on a corner richly contrasted to other redeveloped houses along the
street (it’s located in a residential neighborhood). The landscaping was also a knockout - a combination of sunflowers and cacti I had never seen before.
I categorized the decor as rustic charm meets luxury, which was an unexpected but successful design combination. Shall I call it cowgirl(boy) chic? I loved the textural mix of patterned wallpaper X reclaimed wood X metallic finishes. These details intersected harmoniously, seen where exposed beams traced along walls decorated with chevron-themed wallpaper. There were also some industrial touches like exposed piping throughout. The entry foyer was flanked by two parlors - a feature transferred from the Victorian era in the original layout of the house. Nashville is dubbed “Music City” so one of the parlors had a piano and guitars where (pre-COVID) local musicians entertained hotel guests and visiting neighbors with jam sessions.
Each room had the brand’s signature feature - a claw foot tub situated openly and in the center of the room. We booked the largest room, named “The Lion’s Den”, which included the quirky tub and three (!!!) beds. Outside, a private brick pathway led to a bar, another part of the hotel property, where locals and guests alike gathered nightly.
The location of the hotel was close enough to enjoy the many honky tonks of downtown Nashville yet its neighborhood setting and limited rooms made for restful nights.
*Urban Cowboy sounds fantastic I know, but is not an adventure for the kids. The hotel is adult only - ages 21 and up!
Guitars hung as decoration in one parlor.