Downtown / Sixth Street

The Driskill

★★★★★

The Driskill is Austin's grand dame and the oldest operating hotel in the city: a Romanesque Revival landmark at Sixth and Brazos, opened in December 1886 by the cattleman Jesse Driskill, who promised the finest hotel south of St. Louis and very nearly went broke delivering it. The building still performs that ambition. Arches of brick and limestone frame the entrances, busts of Driskill and his sons gaze down from the facade, and inside, the lobby rises through a mezzanine to a stained-glass dome over marble floors, columns and Victorian detail restored with care. The Driskill Bar is the city's most atmospheric hotel bar, all leather, dark wood and Texas iconography, and a natural place for a drink before a night out on the blocks around it. Rooms are spread across the original 1886 building and a 1930 tower annex; the historic rooms carry period furniture and high ceilings, while the annex rooms are more standardized, so state your preference when booking. History saturates the place: Lyndon Johnson took Claudia "Lady Bird" Taylor on their first date in the dining room in 1934, later used the hotel as a campaign base and watched the 1964 election results from its presidential suite. The hotel is also, by long reputation, the most haunted building in Austin, a story the staff tell with gusto. Location is the point: the Capitol, Congress Avenue and the downtown venues are steps away, and the bats on the Congress Avenue Bridge are a short walk south. The trade-off is Sixth Street's late-night noise on weekends, so ask for a quieter room if you sleep lightly.

Jesse Driskill made his fortune driving cattle to Kansas markets and spent it on this building, which cost a staggering sum for the time and opened with a gala that announced Austin's arrival as a proper capital. Within a few years he lost it, reportedly in a poker game, and the hotel passed through many owners, near-demolition and rescue by preservationists in the 1970s. It has since been restored more than once, and it is now part of Hyatt's Unbound Collection of independent-spirited historic hotels. Governors have held inaugural balls here, legislators have done deals in the bar, and the guestbook runs through a century and a half of Texas politics and music.

Staying here: rooms in the original building are the ones to request for character — tall windows, period furnishings and the sense of sleeping in a museum — while tower rooms tend to be quieter and more modern. The lobby and mezzanine are worth exploring even if you are not a guest, with portraits, display cases and the famous staircase. The bar hosts live music on many evenings and pours a deep list of Texas spirits, and the hotel's restaurants cover breakfast through dinner.

As a base, the Driskill suits first-timers, history lovers and couples marking an occasion who want to walk to everything downtown: the Capitol is a few blocks north, Congress Avenue's restaurants are on the doorstep, and Red River's clubs and the ACL Live theater are within easy reach. Rideshares cover South Congress and Zilker in minutes. The noise caveat is real on weekend nights when Sixth Street fills; request a high floor or a room facing away from the street, and the hotel's thick old walls do the rest.