Hotels
Now Open: Peek Inside Recess Hotel & Club in Savannah
The sister property to Hotel Bardo brings retro fun with board games, hip bunk rooms, and a garden-rimmed rooftop pool
“Recess back at school was the best time of the day, and we wanted to channel that joy and excitement,” says Vanessa Tilley of Left Lane Hospitality Group, which just opened a new hotel in Savannah on the heels of its successful debut of Hotel Bardo in 2024. The new spot, Recess Hotel & Club, effuses local flavor and retro vibes, all meant to jumpstart social interaction.
Located in the Manger building on South Congress, a circa-1912 skyscraper that opened as Hotel Savannah, the new hotel honors that history. “At one point, this building was the future,” Tilley says. Over the years, it changed hands and housed bars, restaurants, and a fitness club. “We were excited to bring it back to its original purpose as a place to stay.”
The team left the original tile mosaic flooring in the on-site restaurant—discovered beneath a layer of generic commercial carpet—and leaned into the characteristic arches, big windows, and soaring ceilings, which they accentuated with vintage elements like push-button light switches and antique mirrors. But evidence of modern-day Savannah abounds too; throws made by SCAD graduate Juliana Lupacchino grace every bed, and there’s a nature-inspired mural in progress by local painter Kipper Millsap in Club Recess, a membership clubhouse with studios, libraries, and workspaces.
After all, Tilley says, Recess is meant to feel local and social. “A club is usually about keeping people out,” she says. “We wanted to flip that and have this idea of a club that is for the community, where everyone belongs.” To that end, beyond the club, guests can book bunk rooms when traveling with friends or a handful of family members. There’s no room service—guests have to mingle in the lobby bar, at French bistro Le Flâneur, or in the “Rumpus Rooms” on each floor, which offer a selection of board games, Nintendos, and custom vending machines dispensing local snacks and instant cameras. Or, there’s always the rooftop, which boasts a bar and the highest rooftop pool in the city, all overlooking historic Johnson Square.
Take a tour below.
The restaurant Le Flâneur is a Parisian-style cafe with bistro chairs, antique mirrors, and the building’s original tile flooring. Don’t miss the mussels, the steak frites, or the oysters, Tilley advises—and cap it all off with an espresso martini.
A library doubles as a cozy co-working space on the second floor of Club Recess.
At left: The “Rumpus Rooms” are communal spaces on each floor that offer board games, Nintendos, and custom vending machines. “We wanted to create that common area that feels like a shared living room where you meet friends and have a social life.”
At right: At twelve stories, the pool and bar perched atop Reccess’s rooftop is the tallest of its kind in town, offering a view over Savannah’s oldest square, Johnson Square, first laid out in 1733.
Recess offers plenty of standard rooms like this one, plus sixty-two bunk rooms meant for small groups or families.
Lindsey Liles joined Garden & Gun in 2020 after completing a master’s in literature in Scotland and a Fulbright grant in Brazil. The Arkansas native is G&G’s digital reporter, covering all aspects of the South, and she especially enjoys putting her biology background to use by writing about wildlife and conservation. She lives on Johns Island, South Carolina.