Graduate Nashville

The city of Nashville has plenty else to recommend it, to say the very least, but this corner of Midtown is all about Vanderbilt University — and so is the Graduate Nashville. Like all of the Graduate hotels it presents an idealized, stylized version of student life, while delivering comforts and conveniences that are far beyond what any of us actually experienced during our student days.

In the rooms, the genteel Southern charm is cranked up to ten, all floral prints and Easter-egg colors, with portraits of local idols like Dolly Parton hanging above the beds. The public spaces, too, are vibrant and colorful, with a Pop art influence and a demonstrated willingness to mix and match patterns, colors, and motifs.

An outpost of the Graduate brand’s signature Poindexter café is present, along with White Limozeen, an opulent only-in-Nashville rooftop restaurant and bar, whose views of the Nashville skyline are impressive. The most unique space, however, has to be the Cross-Eyed Critters Watering Hole, which is — and here professionalism demands that we make clear that we are not in any way joking — a country-themed karaoke bar that features animatronic puppets as a virtual backing band.