America’s Best Restrooms of 2015

Visit this Colorado restroom and you might even learn a new word, "adit," which means a horizontal passage way into a mine. That's what this artistic structure was designed to resemble. Minturn, a Rocky Mountain silver mining town with a population of 1,029, partnered with Monika Wittig of LaN Architecture, LGM 3D Studios, and Noble Welding to create this winning washroom, which promotes the area's rich history. Local leaders hope the acclaim from winning this contest will make road trippers driving through Colorado stop for the bathroom and stay for some sightseeing.

These elaborate fairy-tale restrooms perfectly complement the 1876 Music Hall, which the Boston Globe called "the beating cultural heart of New Hampshire's seacoast." Restroom users wander into a grove of cast bronze trees, Corinthian columns, and Gaudi-influenced melting archways. Relax on a velvet settee while you absorb the magic.

It's hard to imagine a more site-specific bathroom than the twin wooden barrels at Charleston Distilling. Many whiskey lovers might dream of climbing into a huge whiskey barrel, but they probably aren't picturing a toilet inside. These barrel bathrooms are famous on Instagram.

Art and high tech merge in the restroom of this Italian restaurant in Miami. Wire mesh nudes by sculptor Randy Cooper adorn the room, and motion-activated faucets resembling droplights are mounted from the ceiling. Best of all, the sinks overlook the bar, so you don't miss one extra second of South Beach action.

As befits a community center, the Fitton Center for Creative Arts even involved the community in its bathroom design. Led by Cincinnati artist Jan Brown Checco, art students of all ages worked on the mosaics in this conservation-themed washroom. The women's restroom features Mother Nature made from flowers, fossils, seashells, and rainbows of multi-colored glass.

Designer Philippe Beltran recycled materials from old San Diego buildings and incorporated vintage touches like oil cans, plumber pipe, and handheld mirrors into this contender. The restroom has proved so popular that diners in this beachy neighborhood restaurant frequently request tours of the opposite-sex restroom.

Cincinnati has realized that many women are sports fans. So this bright, inviting restroom takes family-friendly to new heights. Nursing moms can relax on gliders in the new Pampers Nursing Suite while catching every second of the game on flat screen TVs. A kitchenette equipped with a sink, refrigerator, and ice make life easier for mothers.

The "Tall Toilet" at Perry Lakes Park measures 50 feet high and combines environmental art with practicality. Designed by architecture students at Auburn University Rural Studio, its materials include locally milled cedar, cypress, stainless steel, anodized aluminum, and concrete. A skylight provides users with an arboreal view. Visitors can also experience the park's "Long Toilet," whose long walls frame a tree, and "Mount Toilet," which crowns the restroom complex's septic system.

"The Far Side" fans Jim Cochener and Mike Moxley, owners of this Boston restaurant, plastered the washroom walls with their favorite cartoons—lots and lots of them. No matter how long guests stay in there, they're entertained. Supposedly some customers try to read a new comic every time they visit the Salty Pig.

Visitors to North America's only underground salt mine attraction can also use the continent's only underground restroom carved out of a 275-year-old stratified salt bed. Engineering hand dryers and pipes in the bowels of the earth was no easy feat. How can a geology fan resist a visit?