Hutton Hotel

Nashville’s Hutton Hotel was the first proper luxury boutique hotel in the city, but it hasn’t been content to rest on its laurels. Fresh off a large-scale renovation, the Hutton is new again, thanks not only to some stylistic updates but some conceptual ones as well, including the addition of a 5,000-square-foot music venue that’s capable of hosting some world-class talent.

We’ll come back to the music in a moment. The hotel’s 250 rooms and suites are looking sharp, decked out in a modernist style with judicious pops of color and swanky granite bathrooms with rain showers. As befits a hotel that’s seen its share of VIP guests, the Hutton boasts no fewer than three penthouse suites, all of them extraordinarily lavish — especially the split-level, three-bedroom Hutton Suite, complete with a full kitchen, a grand piano, a dedicated personal assistant, and private elevator access.

Urban Farmer Steakhouse is the restaurant, serving steakhouse fare that’s modern yet unpretentious, crafted from seasonal and locally sourced ingredients. Meanwhile the Coffee Shop serves house-made donuts and coffee. Analog, the music venue, seats up to 300 patrons, for an up-close-and-personal look at a constant string of musical guests. And in keeping with the grand tradition of songs and albums written in hotels, the Hutton adds a pair of Writers Studios — they’re not hotel rooms, but full-featured miniature recording studios, one designed by Dierks Bentley and the other by OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder. This might just be the place where you record your first number one.