W Hotels Worldwide is the latest hotel giant to join the Music City’s competitive hospitality landscape with the newly opened W Nashville. The property spans 14 stories of a mirrored tower in the Gulch and features architecture from HKS and public spaces and guestrooms crafted by New York-based Rockwell Group (which was responsible for the design of the first W outpost in New York more than two decades ago).
A dynamic art collection and a design scheme evoking a sense of “clean maximalism” characterizes the new urban retreat through a balancing act of grandeur, intimacy, and artisanal craftsmanship.
“Whether it was the agrarian laissez-faire opulence introduced by the city’s French settlers that gave birth to traditional, dramatic Southern architecture, or rural bootleggers who would come into the town center to peddle moonshine, the design of W Nashville reflects this transformative role,” says Rockwell Group partner and studio leader Greg Keffer. “Our design concept is centered around this layered narrative of Nashville’s historical, social, and physical juxtapositions, and its distinct heritage as a center for creative transformation and homegrown industry in the American South.”
W Nashville welcomes guests with the brand’s newest concept: the multifunctional Welcome Den. W signatures, like the Living Room, continue to serve as the central social hubs of the hotel as well. Steel framed glass walls infuse natural light into the lounge, while cozy enclaves framed with pine and mesh maximize the openness of the space.
A bar also anchors the Living Room with a dash of the city’s French history expressed through a tapestry-like fabric scrim that depicts a rural 19th-century fresco and illuminates at night. Grand architectural cues abound at reception, where overscaled traditional cabinets framed in cobalt blue wood are complemented by a contemporary chromate reception desk.
Outside, guests are invited to gather at an amphitheater-style space known as the Spanish Steps for live performance, or the 10,000-square-foot WET Deck—the largest hotel pool area in the city.
The property’s robust onsite F&B lineup includes Carne Mare, both a contemporary and Old World Italian trattoria housed across an open floorplan. Warm walnut millwork and brass accents infuse a moody, rustic quality in tandem with ebony wood floors. Beneath barrel-vaulted ceilings, a show kitchen wrapped in steel and glass functions as the nucleus of the eatery.
The Dutch, a laidback American concept, also features a bar terrace overlooking a 25-foot Jimi Hendrix mural that adorns the hotel façade. The Proof rooftop bar crowns the hotel with abundant outdoor seating and inviting elements like a steel-corner fireplace and reclaimed beams from an 1800s tobacco warehouse. City vistas and original Jim Marshall prints serve as focal points as well.
The hotel’s 286 guestrooms and 60 suites share an aesthetic that blends industrial polish with warm, soothing tones. Raw materials like leather and exposed concrete also abound beside furniture subtly inspired by vintage stereo equipment complete with stud detailing. Signature WOW and Extreme WOW suites are all equipped with balconies in addition to overhead views of the WET Deck.
More from HD:
Hotel Kansas City Balances Grit and Glamour
12 New Bathroom Products Make a Splash
What I’ve Learned Podcast: George Gottl, UXUS
