Bourbon, Horses and Boutique Hotels: Louisville, Kentucky’s Booming Hotel Landscape

As a lifelong Louisville resident, I like to think I know where to find the best hotels, restaurants, and activities around town. However, the problem I’ve had with making recommendations to out-of-towners is that good food and fun activities aren’t available near the city’s hotels. Hotels have historically been concentrated in the downtown core, near the airport, and in the East End suburbs.

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If you want to experience the diverse shops, galleries, eateries and nightlife in Louisville’s historic Highlands neighborhood or the burgeoning arts and cuisine in the NuLu (short for New Louisville) neighborhood, you’ll have to find a way to get there from your hotel.

However, a handful of new hotels are now giving these must-see neighborhoods a place to stay for visitors and Louisville locals looking for a stylish hotel with a local flair.

Myriad Hotel in Highlands

One of those new locations is a 65-room hotel. Myriad Hotelopened in September 2023 in Louisville’s Highlands neighborhood. The Myriad Hotel was formerly the world’s largest disco ball factory, and the hotel’s lobby, the Switchboard, was once the headquarters of the local Southern Bell Telephone Company. The Paseo, a restaurant connected to The Myriad Hotel, opened shortly before the rest of the hotel in June 2023.

The Myriad could easily lean too far into that history with obvious references around every corner, but you won’t find a disco ball spinning above the bed in every guest room. A few well-placed disco balls in the hotel’s public spaces add a touch of 1970s flair, while other references to the hotel’s history are more subtle (the obvious exception being the “party light” button in the elevator).

“Design plays a really important role in interpreting some of the historical elements,” Craig Pishoti, co-founder of Common Bond, the hotel and hospitality management group behind The Myriad Hotel, tells TPG.

Switchboard’s ceiling lights and wall sconces look like the wires and lights you’d find in an old-fashioned phone company, and the lobby artwork plays up the hotel’s connection to the vibrant disco era.

But what really highlights The Myriad’s sense of place as a historic building that fits into the neighborhood’s eccentric character is the meticulous preservation and restoration process.

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“We like to take what’s there and reinterpret it. Rather than trying to hide the building’s industrial origins, we celebrate them,” says Pishoti. “We kept the original concrete floors, a lot of the brickwork, and the exposed windows.”

Even the bright orange tower overlooking the pool is original to the building’s factory days. As I toured the space, I felt the place was alive and brimming with personality, thanks to the preservation, vibrant art, quirky furnishings, and fun elements.

I’ve enjoyed some great meals at Paseo. After staying overnight, I can attest that the coffee here is good enough that I skipped my usual coffee shop and ordered an iced Americano from Switchboard.

“We have really good food in Louisville, and that’s because of the local farms,” Pishoti said. “We partner with 25 local suppliers. We make everything at Paseo from scratch, which is incredibly difficult, but you can taste the flavors in the food,” he added.

I also managed to snag a spot at The Myriad’s Swim Club later this summer, which wasn’t easy. The pool is always booked and crowded, probably due to the regular DJ-led events and access to the pool bar and food service from Paseo.

Unlike most pools in the area that require a membership, the Myriad Hotel pool offers day passes to local guests ages 21 and older Tuesday through Sunday. (Passes cost $10 per person Tuesday through Friday and $25 on Saturday and Sunday. The pool is open to hotel guests only on Mondays.)

Pishoti doesn’t just want visitors from far away to enjoy the charm of the Myriad Hotel.

“We want people to come to Switchboard for coffee in the morning and cocktails in the evening or brunch on the Paseo and stay for a swim at the pool,” he says. “We really want to stay true to our Kentucky roots and create something that locals will love. We know that if locals love it, visitors will love it too.”

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Common Bond also operates the Bardstown Motor Lodge, a quaint motel in Bardstown, Kentucky, and plans to soon open the Broadway Frankfort Hotel in Kentucky’s capital, located right in the heart of the Bourbon Trail.

Genevieve Hotel in NuLu

About a mile down the road in NuLu, you’ll find one of Louisville’s newest boutique properties, Genevieve Hotel. The Genevieve Hotel is operated by Austin-based Bunkhouse Hotels, a hotel group specializing in design-driven boutique properties. The hotels use art, design, and dining to honor and celebrate the communities in which they are located.

The Genevieve Hotel is no exception.

“Bunkhouse is a local, community-driven brand that is also very design-driven,” Lisa Bonifacio, president and general counsel of Bunkhouse, told TPG. “When people travel, they’re looking for experiences, and we’ve always been an experience-driven hotel brand.”

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Louisville is the proud home of Original 21c Museum Hotel locationopened in 2006. However, since then, Louisville has been overlooked by fashion brands when choosing new locations.

When asked why Bunkhouse chose Louisville as its outpost, Bonifacio said, “Austin’s South Congress neighborhood has changed a lot in the last 10 years, and that’s how we see NuLu in terms of beautiful buildings, local shops, restaurants, and walkability.”

Thematically, the Genevieve Hotel could have gone heavy, with tables made from bourbon barrels and paintings of horses in every room. Instead, it celebrates Kentucky heritage and the history of the neighborhood.

A colorful mural outside the building painted by Xavier Schipani depicts the history of Louisville’s Haymarket — an outdoor farmers market in the early 1900s in what is now known as the NuLu neighborhood.

You can find nods to Kentucky’s quilt-making history on the pillows in the guest rooms, the hotel’s signature robes (each Bunkhouse location has its own robe pattern), and the logo of the hotel’s Parisian-inspired restaurant Rosettes. Even the hotel’s secret tavern Lucky Penny is named after Penny Chenery, owner of Secretariat, a 1973 Triple Crown winner.

The Genevieve Hotel not only represents authentic Kentucky tradition, but also supports local artisans and businesses in surprising and creative ways.

The sauce on Rosettes’ famous banana toast is made with bourbon from the Rabbit Hole Distillery, the hotel next door. Additionally, works by local artists are displayed in every guest room and throughout the hotel’s public spaces. At Mini Marche, the hotel’s mini market and café, you’ll find a variety of goods from local vendors among the snacks and drinks available.

Like other Bunkhouse hotels, Hotel Genevieve is more than just a place to stay. Locals and hotel guests alike can stop by Mini Marche for a morning cup of coffee (which I can also attest is delicious) and visit the rooftop Bar Genevieve for happy hour and panoramic city views in the evening.

“If you’re working remotely, hotels have places where you want to sit all day instead of a sterile lobby,” Bonifacio said. “With more people having that flexibility, it creates an even better opportunity for hotels like Genevieve to thrive because it’s an environment where people actually want to be.”

Other hotels conveniently located

Louisville’s 21c Museum Hotel, the Myriad Hotel, and the Genevieve Hotel aren’t the only lifestyle hotels scattered throughout the city. There are also Curfew in the Highlands, Grady Hotel in the city center and Tempo by Hilton Louisville Downtown NuLu in NuLu.

These properties are refreshing Louisville’s hotel scene with something we desperately need: affordable places to work, stay, and play that visitors and residents alike will actually want to spend time in. They also provide something I’m looking for: places to grab a great cup of coffee.

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