Texas takes great pride in its heritage, including its venerable hotels. When Austin’s elite Driskill Hotel faced demolition in the 1970s, locals acquired the property via share purchase, ensuring its preservation. In old Nacogdoches, community-raised money produced
the 112-room Fredonia in 1952; to this day, the lobby of the “Nacogdoches Community Hotel” is the “city’s living room.”
Just as star chefs in Texas cook as if for friends at home, the proprietors of the state’s well-diversified hotel mix—from boutique upstarts to legends nearing their bicentennials—deliver that genuine family welcome, not to mention plenty of sophisticated facilities and amenities for groups.
Unique Boutique
Whether it’s a major metro or a small town, Texas is hot on the boutique hotel scene.
A sure sign of a city’s boutique arrival is when Kimpton Hotel and Restaurant Group comes to town. Housed in former ’60s gem the Mockingbird Hilton, the 198-room Hotel Palomar in Dallas is Kimpton’s first Texas property. Smart meeting space, the mind- and body-oriented Exhale Spa and an adjacent Trader Vic’s make the Palomar a business and leisure winner.
Hotel ZaZa, another hipster, has two locations: one with 153 rooms in uptown Dallas and another with 300 rooms in Houston’s Museum District. The new concept has hit the Texas hotel stage like a Broadway show. With suite names like Rock Star and For Your Eyes Only, you get the idea. The gorgeously extravagant Hotel ZaZa is designed to remind meeting planners that “out-of-the-ordinary spaces can lead to unexpectedly innovative thinking.” The magic includes Imagination Level meetings, lavish Concept Suites and poolside bungalows.
The Joule, from Starwood’s Luxury Collection, is also part of Dallas’ boutique parade. This 120-room business district hot spot features an underground wine bar, a Charlie Palmer restaurant and a rooftop pool and sun deck.
Billed as a “personal luxury hotel,” Houston’s 135-room Hotel Icon resides in a landmark bank building from 1911. The property, a AAA Four Diamond recipient in 2008, boasts signature suites, a full-service spa and distinctive meeting and event space.
Other Houston boutiques include the 93-room Lancaster, with complimentary local town car service and local favorite Bistro Lancaster; the 97-room Alden, with wild decor and a hot restaurant and lounge; and the chic 314-room Derek.
The cream-colored lobby of Fort Worth’s boutique Ashton Hotel seems cast from Golden Age Hollywood. Equally evocative are the 39 impeccably styled rooms. Joined from two landmark buildings, the Ashton’s meeting spaces include a stellar underground wine cellar.
Private planes can taxi within 50 feet of Fredericksburg’s 50-room Hangar Hotel. Styled as a World War II military hangar and dressed in South Pacific decor, this unique airfield-based boutique comes complete with aviation-themed event and conference facilities.
Deluxe Treatment
With all-encompassing golf, spa and adventure resorts and top-drawer urban hotels, Texas has a classy pad to suit any group’s interest.
You know a hotel’s big when it offers its own guided tours. Overlooking Lake Grapevine and minutes from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, the 1,511-room Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center is a true jaw-dropper, with a giant day spa and fitness center, acres of flexible meeting space and a sprawling entertainment and retail complex.
Also in Grapevine is the 395-room Hilton DFW Lakes Executive Conference Center, a forested, IACC-certified work-play retreat.
The 397-room Four Seasons Resort and Club Dallas at Las Colinas in Irving is Texas’ only AAA Five Diamond Resort, featuring superb function space, outdoor villas and a world-class spa.
The 301-room Westin Stonebriar Resort in Frisco is another star performer, winning Westin’s top North American hotel award three times, including the last two years straight.
Set on an 18-acre wooded oasis in the heart of Houston, the 288-room Houstonian Hotel, Club and Spa is a meeting planner’s favorite. It’s VIP all the way at this urban sanctuary, with stellar meeting space, admission to the top-rated Houstonian Fitness Club and dream treatments at the Trellis Spa.
Hill Country flows with immersive getaways. Overlooking Austin’s Lady Bird Lake, the 448-room Hyatt Regency Austin has a dramatic 17th floor ballroom, while the 166-room Lakeway Resort and Spa scenically fronts Austin’s Lake Travis.
The Colorado River winds through the Austin area’s mythic Lost Pines region, where the 492-room Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort features championship golf, immense indoor and outdoor event space and family activities for conferees.
Farther southwest in San Antonio, the Hyatt Regency Hill Country Resort and Spa blends AAA Four Diamond pampering and Western ambience with a four-acre waterpark and team-building programs. Once the sprawling Rogers-Wiseman Ranch, the 500-room property is a rustic paradise crafted in river stone and native limestone and surrounded by native flowers and plants, some of which star in treatments at the Wildflower Spa.
Along the Gulf Coast, a “shore” bet is Galveston Island’s San Luis Resort, Spa and Conference Center. Built atop historic Fort Crockett, this AAA Four Diamond beachfront resort features a grotto spa, private cabanas and endless recreational pursuits.
At the other extreme—and the other side of the state—is the 103-room Lajitas Resort and Spa, secluded on 25,000 acres of West Texas desert 100 miles from civilization. The property is located near Big Bend National Park.
Texas also has its share of exciting, high-end city hotels.
Among the options in the DFW Metroplex are Fort Worth’s Renaissance Worthington and the Sheraton Fort Worth Hotel and Spa, Starwood’s first property in the city.
Starwood’s DFW Metroplex portfolio also includes the 252-room W Dallas–Victory, where clubbers flock to the high-adrenaline 33rd-floor Ghostbar.
Across the street from the Austin Convention Center, the city’s premier group gathering space, the contemporary 800-room Hilton Austin boasts the city’s largest ballroom and a scenic rooftop pool and sun deck, and the service and comforts at the historic 189-room InterContinental Stephen F. Austin are exceptional.
Past is Present
After taking over Mobley Hotel in Cisco in 1919, Conrad Hilton bought the Melba in Fort Worth and the Waldorf in Dallas before building his first Hilton in 1925, also in Dallas. The rest, needless to say, is history, but the early Hilton story is emblematic of vintage Texas hotels—and the tales they tell.
Built in 1886 by cattle baron Jesse Driskill as the “Frontier Palace of the South,” Austin’s 189-room Driskill is Texas’ most celebrated historic luxury hotel. Lyndon Johnson met Lady Bird here, it’s custom-built for important agendas, and that stair-bouncing ball belongs to the resident child ghost.
Teddy Roosevelt recruited his Rough Riders at San Antonio’s 316-room Menger Hotel, an 1859 treasure by the Alamo. James Dean and crew called Marfa’s 33-room Hotel Paisano—a 1930s palace from Hilton’s early contractors—home while filming the 1955 movie Giant.
Bonnie and Clyde stayed in Room 305 of Fort Worth’s century-old Stockyards Hotel, an artful, 100-room property where Old West touches include saddles as bar stools in the H3 Ranch saloon.
The “Wild Bunch” visited Fort Worth’s “Hell’s Half-Acre,” now the acclaimed Sundance Square entertainment district and home to Etta’s Place, a 10-room bed-and-breakfast named for the Sundance Kid’s girlfriend.
Opened in 1927, the Gage Hotel in Marathon won Texas Highways’ vote for the state’s top small hotel. This desert charmer includes a spa and diverse rustic event spaces.
One year younger is the national landmark LaSalle in Bryan-College Station, reborn in 2000 as a boutique hotel.
Galveston’s 119-room Tremont House, twice reborn since 1839, counts six U.S. Presidents among its guests. The stunning rooftop terrace views are rivaled only by Galveston’s other grand dame, the circa-1911 oceanside Hotel Galvez–A Wyndham Historic Hotel. The 226-room property is the living portrait of the city’s Victorian heritage. A jazz age and big band era hot spot, the “Queen of the Gulf” comes with meeting space galore and breathtaking Gulf views.
Texas hotel lore—or perhaps marketing allure—includes “nonpaying guests.” In the east Texas town of Jefferson, the waterfront Jefferson Hotel, built in 1851, is full of ghost tales, while the famed Excelsior House simply embraces its antique spirit. In the town of New Braunfels near San Antonio, the deceased builder of the circa-1929 Faust Hotel reportedly still checks in.
Meanwhile, Texas dude ranch options, some of which are historic, include H.E. Sproul Ranch near Fort Davis, Hill Country’s Colbert Ranch and BR Lightning Ranch outside Bandera. Northwest of Fort Worth in Graham, the acclaimed Wildcatter Ranch and Resort sits on 4,000 breathtaking acres in legendary Young County.
