Historic Hotels & Inns in Tennessee

Ways in

Themes in Tennessee

Nashville, downtown and the old neighborhoods

The Hermitage Hotel opened in 1910 as Nashville’s first million-dollar hotel. In 1920 both sides of the suffrage fight made it their headquarters while the legislature voted on the 19th Amendment, and bandleader Francis Craig wrote the 1947 hit ‘Near You’ while leading its Grill Room orchestra. It became a National Historic Landmark in 2020, and the hotel says it is the only hotel in Tennessee with that status. Marr & Holman designed two more downtown hotels a year apart: the 1929 James Robertson, now Holston House, and the 1930 Noel, now Noelle. In the neighborhoods, the Germantown Inn fills an 1865 townhouse, The Russell a former Edgefield church and Caroline House a 1921 house near 12 South.

Railroad stations and railroad hotels

Tennessee’s railroad stations still draw overnight guests. The Louisville & Nashville Railroad opened Nashville’s Union Station in 1900; passenger service ended in 1979, and it opened as a hotel in 1986. A court fight over crossings kept the Southern Railway’s Terminal Station in Chattanooga from operating until 1909; after train service ended in 1970, local businessmen made it the Chattanooga Choo Choo, named for the Glenn Miller song. The Hotel Chalet now rents restored Pullman sleeper cars on its grounds; its other rooms are in a hotel building that opened beside the station in 1974. The Illinois Central’s 1914 Grand Central Station in Memphis is now The Central Station hotel and still an Amtrak stop. In Greeneville, Col. John H. Doughty built the 1884 Grand Central Hotel for the railroad trade; it reopened as the General Morgan Inn in 1996.

The Peabody and Memphis

Col. Robert C. Brinkley opened the first Peabody in 1869 and named it for his friend, the philanthropist George Peabody. The present 12-story hotel at Second and Union opened in 1925; CBS radio broadcast its bands nationally from 1937, and its mallard ducks march through the lobby at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. Hotel Napoleon fills the 1902 Scimitar Building on Madison Avenue, and in Victorian Village The James Lee House, begun as an 1848 farmhouse and later the James Lee Arts Academy, rents five suites.

Plateau inns, a spa town and park cabins

On the Cumberland Plateau, British author Thomas Hughes founded Rugby in 1880 as a colony for the younger sons of English gentry, and its first boarding house, Newbury House, takes guests again. The Edgeworth Inn, in an 1897 clapboard building, stands inside the Monteagle Sunday School Assembly, founded on the plateau in 1882 as the ‘Chautauqua of the South’. Red Boiling Springs was a resort town known for its mineral waters, and Armour’s Hotel, its first brick hotel (1924), says it keeps the only mineral bath still operating in Tennessee. At Pickett and Standing Stone state parks, the Civilian Conservation Corps and the WPA built stone and hewn-log rental cabins in the 1930s; the state still rents them alongside newer cabins, so book the historic units.

Road trip

Memphis to Chattanooga, inn to inn

Memphis

Start at The Peabody in time for the 5 p.m. duck march, or at The Central Station on South Main, still an Amtrak stop.

Nashville

Give Nashville two nights. Pick a downtown landmark or a neighborhood inn from our Nashville guide.

Monteagle

Climb onto the Cumberland Plateau to The Edgeworth Inn, in an 1897 building inside the Monteagle Sunday School Assembly.

Chattanooga

End at The Read House, rebuilt in 1926 on the site of an 1872 hotel, or book a Pullman sleeper-car room at The Hotel Chalet beside Terminal Station.

Context

History and architecture

Tennessee’s historic inns follow its railroads, resorts and downtowns. The oldest building we list, The James Lee House in Memphis, began as an 1848 farmhouse, and the Read House name has stood on its Chattanooga site since 1872. The railroads brought Greeneville’s Grand Central Hotel in 1884 and three stations that are hotels today: Nashville’s Union Station in 1900, Chattanooga’s Terminal Station in 1909 and Memphis’s Grand Central Station in 1914. On the Cumberland Plateau, Thomas Hughes founded Rugby in 1880 and the Monteagle Sunday School Assembly followed in 1882, and Red Boiling Springs was a resort town known for its mineral waters. In the cities, hotels rose downtown: The Hermitage in 1910, The Peabody in 1925, the rebuilt Read House in 1926, and Marr & Holman’s James Robertson and Noel hotels in Nashville in 1929 and 1930. In the Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps and the WPA built the rental cabins at Pickett and Standing Stone state parks.