This Boutique Hotel Chain Is Also a Contemporary Art Museum

Just blocks away from lower Broadway — a busy strip full of honky-tonks, live country music, and party buses saddled with cowboy boots-clad bachelorette parties — is an elegant hotel that may as well be in a whole different universe.

One of nine boutique hotels in a nationwide chain, 21c Museum Hotel Nashville is a hotel and contemporary art museum rolled into one. 21c founders Laura Lee Brown — whose family owns Jack Daniel's, the famed Tennessee whiskey — and Steve Wilson opened the first location in Louisville, Kentucky, as a way to share some 3,000 pieces of art from their private collection with the public.

For the art lover, 21c is truly a feast for the eyes. The Nashville location itself boasts 10,500 square feet of art space, including paintings, sculptures, and audiovisual productions on display throughout the entire hotel: in the lobby, the restaurant, hallways, elevators, guest rooms, and of course, the art galleries.

Two of the 124 guest rooms and suites serve as "Artist Suites," and feature creative art installations. Painter Sebastiaan Bremer and musician-composer Josephine Wiggs teamed up to deck out the Sanctuary 21c suite with guitars, an easel, and a Mac, the walls alive with floral wallpaper and prints of flowers. The room serves to encourage its visitors to fully immerse themselves in the hotel experience, inspiring them to make art and contribute to its creative undertaking.

Although art is not the focus of the rest of the rooms, each one contains a piece of original artwork.

While you have to be a guest to explore the upper hallways, 21c Museum Hotel Nashville has three floors of art that are free to the public. The space is open 365 days a year and features exhibits that change regularly, with art rotating among the properties.

Lest you think 21c takes itself too seriously, it doesn't. Scattered throughout the hotel is a flock of giant penguins made of recyclable plastic. Each location has its own colony; in Nashville, they are teal.

"The public really chose the penguins," said co-founder Steve Wilson. "They were part of our opening exhibition in Louisville and people couldn't help but interact with them. They would move them around, take photos with them, take them to dinner and to their rooms. They have really become an icon, and emblematic of our mission to make thought-provoking contemporary art more accessible to the public."

Like thieves in the night, hotel staff moves the penguins around and positions them in the most unexpected and unusual places. One morning, I wandered down my hall to see them all lined up in a row, ready to march into a guest room. Another night I was eating by myself in the hotel restaurant when my waiter sat one of the lovable creatures in front of me. "I thought you could use the company," he said.

Meals at on-site Gray & Dudley feature "inspired comfort food" on the seasonal menu. Current small bites include Southern favorites like hush puppies and fried green tomatoes. Main dishes include North Carolina catfish with crispy boudin and summer squash as well as falafel skillet bread served with whipped feta, garlic yogurt, and pickled onions.

On-site amenities at 21c Museum Hotel Nashville include a 24-hour fitness center with Peloton bikes and massage treatment rooms.