El Cosmico

We always liked Liz Lambert’s style, beginning with her first ventures, Austin’s stylish and urbane Hotel San Jose and the luxe, bohemian Saint Cecilia. El Cosmico, however, has left the traditional hotel world behind, trading in rooms and suites for trailers, yurts, tents and tepees, a sort of post-hippie hospitality commune on the outskirts of Marfa, itself something of an oasis of creativity in the vast expanse of west Texas.

Architects Lake/Flato and Jack Sanders of Design Build Adventure are responsible for the design, such as it is, and while landscape designers rarely get top billing in hotel projects, this place would be dirt if not for the work of Mark Word and Billy Spencer. But the most immediately noticeable design elements are the vintage Fifties trailers — which, at El Cosmico, are essentially the luxury suites.

Clearly this experience is going to have to involve an expansion of one’s comfort zone. Only one of the trailers, the Imperial Mansion, has an indoor shower, making it the closest equivalent of a presidential suite — the others move their facilities outdoors. Further on down the range are the yurts and tepees, with facilities shared in the central bath house. And for a nominal fee you can pitch a tent on site, making the El Cosmico experience available to pretty much anyone with the wherewithal to get there.

That experience includes not just a supremely mellow communal atmosphere and close access to Marfa, but a few other things besides — wood-fired Dutch hot tubs, for one, and a shared outdoor kitchen and barbecue area. The long-term vision for the place involves music festivals and all manner of countercultural happenings — and of course there’s nothing stopping you from pulling up, pitching a tent, and making your own entertainment.