Hotel San Jose, Austin TX

Amidst the mecca of the South Congress Ave. thoroughfare in Austin sits Hotel San Jose. As an antithesis of the standard corporate hotel, San Jose is a longtime earmark for design-minded travelers to the state's capitol city. The 40-room hotel was originally built in 1939 and remodeled in the late 1990s by the multi-faceted owner Liz Lambert and the expert hands of Lake Flato architects.

San Jose embraces a holistic attitude of clean and minimal aesthetics that meet with distinct flourishes such as fresh-cut flowers and turntables in the rooms, rentable Polaroid cameras, typewriters and bicycles, as well as extensive music and video libraries. A bamboo-lined wading pool and a large outdoor patio area are highlights mixed between the muted stucco walls with terra cotta-tiled roofs and gravel-trail that runs throughout the open-air corridors of the property. Cool grey with hints of soft green blend nicely with the foliage and ivy growing on the premises.



Hotel San Jose
www.sanjosehotel.com
1316 South Congress Ave
Austin, Texas 78704


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Photos

01. Michael A. Muller

8 Comments

Comments

[Mariella]

A hotel with rentable polaroid cameras?That's beyond cool..

[Luisa Brimble]

wow now this is different!!!! and my kind of hotel for sure. thank you for sharing this Michael.

[Stefanie Ingram]

This looks great! Great images!

[kylie]

that last shot is awesome.

[Kim Kolar]

I've stayed there. It was very cool, and in a great, funky part of town. Quintessential Austin!

[Amy]

I love the San Jose Hotel! Everyone always talks up the Ace, but the San Jose has got it beat by a long shot. So much character and heart. Thanks for sharing.

[Amy Hovis]

Fun to see more of Austin on the Kinfolk blog! The San José is absolutely one of my favorite places in the world, seriously. Liz Lambert is multi-talented with great vision.

Also, the furniture was designed and fabricated by good friend, Jamey Garza who now lives in Marfa, Texas. He also worked with Liz on the Thunderbird Hotel in Marfa. Please check out their work- they are awesome: http://www.garzamarfa.com/

Jamey and Constance are now heading out on a road trip from Marfa to LA with their newest furniture pieces and some beautiful handmade textile work by Constance. If you are in LA, come meet them and check out their work! They will be showing at Heath Ceramics on March 24-May 6, 2012.

http://www.heathceramics.com/go/heath/

[La Mont]

Many thanks for posting this. We used to live in Austin and would walk by the Hotel San Jose
and wonder what it was like inside (to stay there is way beyond our means). There is a lovely old hotel in San Antonio, downtown near the river, owned I believe by the same people (or person?), called Hotel Havana. Y'all should check it out!