Hotel Clermont a great hotel in Atlanta

We all still don’t know when exactly the remodeled Hotel Clermont—which has been shuttered for nearly a decade—will open to the public but we’ve finally had a appearance inside the brand new rooms. Earlier this specific month, the hotel quietly offered tours to what appeared to be a steady movement of hipster millennials. I’m not necessarily either of those, but I fortunately happened to be driving by when I saw a team of sight-seers heading through the front door. A single U-turn in the middle of Ponce later plus am was inside the lobby, desperate to start my tour and spending our donation to whatever fortunate charitable organization would receive the proceeds.

Yet that is not what you want to know. You want to determine what the Clermont looks and, probably more importantly, feels like. Even though most Atlantans have never actually seen the interior in the hotel, nor stayed there all through what we’ll charitably call the particular heyday (I did, but this is a story for another time), there has been a reliable boil of anticipation for the Clermont to reopen its doors. Wouldn’t it live up to expectations? Would it prove the particular worthy companion to the beloved eliminate club in its basement? Would it have the right, well, attitude?

Rest assured, based on what I saw, it looks quite great and occupies the lovely spot for those who want a playfully old style atmosphere but not at the expense connected with creature comforts. The lobby offers the first clues, with items intended for sale—flasks, skinny ties, Clermont-branded trucker caps—that function both as real metaphors for the self-conscious irony which will suffuses the property and as objects the particular prospective demographic might actually want to buy.

Taking a few steps aside is an elevator that goes to some rooftop bar. The space alone is rather generic, with a cabana-style protected club and lounge chairs with an Astroturf surface, but at night with all the radio-tower sign gleaming neon reddish simply overhead, it’s undoubtedly a lot more amazing.

As for the guest rooms them selves, they provide a good mix of style plus high-class as befits an trendy shop hotel. All the furniture seems to be classic and mostly mid-century, aside from the particular gorgeous claw-foot tubs in certain areas. And although the beds plus desks don’t necessarily match, the particular furniture are all quite tasteful plus handsomely restored. A representative told me almost all 5 floors had been gutted throughout the rehabilitation and I believe it; the particular once-cramped guest rooms have been changed into cut spaces where the once small bathing rooms are now surprisingly roomy.

Just before I’d visited, I hadn’t recognized precisely how upscale the Clermont’s brand new proprietor, Nashville-based Oliver Hospitality, has been striving. A standard one-bed room begins from $199, while a room along with cal king bunk beds—for those with kids—can best $300. That places the particular Clermont in the same heady business since downtown’s Ritz-Carlton and Midtown’s Loews, and a notch above many other shops the Glenn and Ellis.

The particular downstairs lobby bar, using its covetable bar carts, banquette seats plus low lighting, appears to be taking a comparable feel as Reynoldstown’s Fantastic Novelty helmet. Down a few steps is Small Lou’s, the hotel’s French-American brasserie, that was busy with staff teaching therefore i was able only to peer in the stairways. At first glance, it looked delicately stylish.

The hotel clearly is designed to keep a certain nonthreatening edginess, from the decoration its PR team identifies since “rock-n’-roll-meets-grandma’s-living-room” to its old style visuals to a range of guest deals that may include expedited entry towards the Clermont Lounge, tickets to the Plaza Theater, and drink vouchers for the BeltLine pub crawl.

In short, the particular overhauled Clermont is something pretty a new comer to Atlanta. We’ve got several resort chains that shoot for the hipper clientele, like the AC Resort with Lenox Square and numerous Resort Indigos and Ws. Yet this really is our first genuinely unconventional trendy boutique hotel, like the mid-century-themed Live Hotel in Chattanooga, the particular museum-themed 21C hotels around the nation, or any type of of the Ace Hotels.

Right after almost a decade of driving beyond the sadly shuttered Clermont, I’d condition Oliver has done a creditable work together with the revamp, creating a welcome combination with the city’s hospitality scene. However hotel or its eating place may open remains a question indicate. Common manager Alan Rae informed myself perhaps by the end of May. {Or perhaps} in June.

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