Memphis · Downtown – Madison Avenue
Hotel Napoleon
The 1902 Scimitar Building, which the hotel says went up for newspaperman Napoleon Hill, whose carved initials still sit above the entrance.
- Built
- 1902Built 1902 as the Scimitar Building (NRHP significant year 1902); later a hotel.
- Style
- Beaux-Arts / Romanesque Revival
- Architect
- August A. Chigazola and William J. Hanker (NRIS)
- Type
- Boutique hotel
- Rooms
- 58
- Area
- Downtown – Madison Avenue
- Credentials
- Listed on the National Register of Historic Places
The story
The hotel says the building went up in 1902 for newspaperman Napoleon Hill’s Evening Scimitar, and that Hill’s carved ‘N’ and ‘H’ initials still sit above the Madison Avenue entrance. It later housed a printing operation, a bank and decades of downtown offices before its 1983 National Register listing. Today it is Memphis’s only voco hotel, with 58 rooms behind the original stone facade, Tennessee marble, ironwork balconettes and arched windows, and the Archives Bar & Bistro on site.
Good to know
- Breakfast: available
- Address: 179 Madison Avenue, Memphis, TN 38103
Things to do
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Last verified October 2026. Details change; confirm with the inn before you book.