I love a good hotel bar. Let me clarify: I love a good hotel bar when I’m the one traveling. I decidedly do not love walking up to a lobby bar in a downtown Nashville hotel to discover an entire convention’s worth of Bill Brasky’s friends standing three-deep all the way around the bar, oblivious to anyone else who might want to get a drink as they consume expense-account Old Fashioneds ordered one at a time until the poor mixologist’s muddling arm is numb. Yeah, I don’t like that hotel bar.
But a dimly lit lounge with a friendly barkeep and no more than 10 people sitting on stools drinking cleverly chosen cocktails while music plays just loudly enough to boost the energy but not at a volume where you can’t whisper a secret to whoever you’re drinking with? That’s my kind of hotel bar. Those are the sorts of places that are better than any guidebook when it comes to discovering the soul of an unfamiliar city. Ask a fellow traveler what they’ve enjoyed during their trip, or even better, find a local who likes hotel bars to give you advice on where the tourists don't go. You could even make friends with the bartender who will give you the true inside scoop and point you to hidden opportunities and often the keys to adventure.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think we’ve got one of those bars in Nashville, and — great for me, but bad for my liver and wallet — it’s four blocks from my front door. The Chloe Nashville is a lovely 19-room boutique hotel at 1906 Acklen Ave. in Hillsboro Village. It’s the latest project from LeBlanc + Smith, the New Orleans-based hospitality group that brought Barrel Proof to town and will open Love’s Alibi next week in The Gulch.
New Orleanians are great at carving a hotel out of old buildings without sacrificing the history or the charm of the original structure. They can open up a few walls, dig a pool in an abandoned parking lot and turn a former doctor’s office/laundromat/brothel into a Condé Nast Traveler award-winner. The Chloe occupies two buildings connected by a center breezeway that serves as the main entrance and reception desk. The attractive buildings date back to 1918 and 1920 and were once home to Spirit Music and Asylum Records, where legends like Johnny Cash, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan once plied their trades. In fact, the two companies lend their names to the separate wings of The Chloe.
Most important for Bites readers, The Chloe has three separate bars, creating one of the best bar-to-guest room ratios in town, I imagine. The outdoor pool bar is waiting for warmer weather to crank up, but the hotel intends to sell pool passes so that locals can enjoy the “sip and dip” experience. There’s another small bar in the restaurant, which itself sits about 40 people within the cozy dining room.
The main bar starts with a few seats in the open lobby and continues through a wall into an appropriately dark lounge with exposed brick, lots of wood and plush fabrics, intimate seating areas and damn fine cocktails. None of the bars have names, so you’ll have to discover your own nomenclature to invite friends. But in truth, the entire property is so compact that you’d be hard-pressed to lose anyone there.
Across the lobby is another lounge area with access to a small private dining room and comfortable seating. As I toured the property with LeBlanc + Smith founder and creative director Robert “Ro” LeBlanc, he shared his vision for that space.
“We want this to become the lobby for the neighborhood, where you can post up for a couple of hours and work while you enjoy some coffee or a cocktail,” said LeBlanc. I asked if they would have servers coming through since there isn’t a bar on that side of The Chloe, and his answer impressed me.
“If somebody is coming by every 20 minutes to ask you if you want a drink, that creates a sense of obligation to buy something," he said. "That’s not what we want. Sure, we’ll get you a drink, but that’s not the expectation.”
LeBlanc has been very thoughtful about making the move to Nashville after several successful projects in New Orleans, and he definitely sees a kindred spirit in Music City.
“The two cities are very similar culturally,” he said. “Music is so important to our heritage: country in Nashville and jazz in New Orleans. We’re cities of neighborhoods, and we intentionally sought out an area with history and places to walk to so that we could encourage our guests to get out into the neighborhood. We’re bringing our sense of joie de vivre to Nashville!”
While The Chloe will certainly be a popular destination for discerning visitors, LeBlanc really wants Nashvillians to consider the property to be for them as well. To that end, they’re offering a 30 percent discount on rooms until spring as an opening special in case you’re looking for a staycation or just have so much fun at dinner and the bar that you decide to stay overnight.
Or just drop by for a cup of coffee while you admire the striking artwork that decorates the main floor and lounges. Or wait until summer and spend a day lounging by the pool until it’s time for dinner. And where else can you find a fantastic bar on this side of the river with 40-plus street parking spots?
And since I’ll be walking there, I won’t even take up one of those spots. See you at Othe end of the bar where I’ll be drinking a proper Sazerac!
