Detroit, Michigan
Detroit borders Canada, dips below zero degrees in winter, and long epitomized the American Rust Belt. And yet the Motor City, making a cultural comeback, shares a kinship with the South, thanks to the twentieth-century influx of Southerners, mostly Black, who moved here looking for opportunity. The Great Migration gave the world the soulful sounds of Motown—Berry Gordy’s family relocated from Georgia—and much more.
The Shinola Hotel, a recent extension of the Shinola brand dreamed up by Texan Tom Kartsotis, expands the company’s celebration of American craftsmanship. It marries a pair of rehabilitated historic structures—a former department store and a sewing machine factory—with three new buildings, all filled with contemporary art. The compound straddles Parker’s Alley, lined with shops and eateries curated by former Shinola creative director Daniel Caudill, and named for Thomas Parker, who became one of Detroit’s first Black landowners.
Book a room at the 129-room hotel and go in search of Southern cultural influences. You don’t have to range far. Order a bucket of fried chicken, honey-butter biscuits, and tangy slaw with vinegar peppers from the walk-up window of Penny Red’s, part of the hotel. Or walk a few blocks to Savannah-Blue, a restaurant owned by a trio of Southern transplants that serves Northern soul food with familiar flavors, like a Georgian hummus that substitutes black-eyed peas for chickpeas, and braised oxtail over cheddar risotto. —Logan Ward
Leeds, New York
A few generations after their Borscht Belt heyday as a summer-vacation colony for families from New York City, the Catskills (also known, back when, as “the Jewish Alps”) have lately seen a renewed surge of interest from twenty-first-century urbanites seeking refuge, if only for a weekend. Which helps explain the opening of inviting riffs on summer camp like Camptown, a roadside enclave of fifty woodsy log cabins and guest rooms that debuted last year in Leeds, New York, on what was long the site of the mom-and-pop Carl’s Rip Van Winkle Motor Lodge.
Spearheaded by a hotel developer based in Charleston, South Carolina, the reimagined compound has kept some appealingly rustic details: knotty pine walls, porch swings, wood-burning stoves, a communal firepit, wool blankets in the cabins (some of them built in the 1930s). But there are also plenty of artisanal touches and creature comfort upgrades like organic mattresses, Shaker-inspired nook beds, Frette linens, and Bluetooth speakers.
The on-site restaurant, Casa Susanna, serves up a seasonal menu of Jalisco influenced specialties light-years beyond motel fare, with the likes of smoked goat birria tatemada, boquerones tostadas, house-made tortillas, and prickly pear sorbet with mezcal frozen citrus. In just over a year, the food has earned raves from diners, a spot on national best-new-restaurant lists, and a James Beard Award nomination for chef Efrén Hernández. —Mike Grudowski
Swan Valley, Idaho
In early 2020, the fly-fishing guide Oliver White and his longtime client and friend Jimmy Kimmel—yes, that Jimmy Kimmel—were in the middle of a deal to buy South Fork, a storied Western trout fishing lodge. White, a North Carolina native who began his guiding career on East Tennessee’s South Holston and Watauga Rivers, has grown into one of the industry’s leading entrepreneurs. Only months earlier, he’d lost his lauded Abaco Lodge in the Bahamas to Hurricane Dorian. The pandemic also had him spooked. “I told Jimmy I thought we should walk away from the deal,” White recalls. “But he was steady. He was willing to stay the course.”
In the four years since, the pair has transformed what was the pretty darn good but corporate-run lodge, on Idaho’s famed South Fork of the Snake River—one of the finest dry-fly fishing spots in the world—into a stunning angling destination. They added A-frame cabins along the river and a new fly shop, and reimagined and renamed the lodge’s signature watering hole: Now it’s the Machete Bar, “a New York–style cocktail bar in the middle of eastern rural Idaho,” White says. “That’s unprecedented.” And since Kimmel considers the lodge a second home, guests get to ride on his luxury coattails. One example: The late-night talk-show host puts a premium on American-made goods, so all the handmade dishware comes from Arizona.
But make no mistake, South Fork remains a place where you can walk around barefoot. The Machete Bar might have one of the best bourbon selections in the West, but there’s nothing wrong with popping open a beer and slouching by a firepit alongside the river, which flows cold and pure throughout the summer. —T. Edward Nickens
Washington, Connecticut
The gambrel roof, dormer windows, and gray shingle siding of the Mayflower radiate New England charm. Inside, though, “it’s much more a picnic in the garden,” says designer Celerie Kemble, who brought her Palm Beach aesthetic to the thirty-room inn and spa, built in 1894 to house a boys’ academy. The lobby greets visitors with a tasteful mix of modern art, flea market finds, continental antiques, potted plants, taxidermy, and sumptuous blue-and-white wallpaper. Kemble worked with Auberge Resorts chief creative officer Kemper Hyers to avoid a design sin that even some of the most luxe hotels commit: trendy sameness. “Our core business personality is that of respect for the old and for teasing out the humor and the personality that make something enduring,” Kemble says.
The Mayflower’s personality prizes joy over prestige and expresses itself in the merging of the indoors and outdoors and the oddities that grace walls and tables. At auctions and antique shops, Kemble and team hunted down treasures like shaving mirrors, paper flowers, and a collection of nineteenth-century tinsel paintings, folk art made from crinkly foil under reverse-painted glass. The sparkly paintings, new to Kemble, were a revelation: “There’s spirit in them. That’s important to me, celebrating the spirit of a place.” —Logan Ward
Marshall, California
Overlooking Tomales Bay, fifty miles northwest of San Francisco, the recently reopened Lodge at Marconi sits like a luxurious tree-house hideaway among eucalyptuses and Monterey pines dripping in wispy lichen. A forty-five-room boutique retreat in Marconi State Historic Park, the lodge once served as a radio-receiving station, then the headquarters of a now-disbanded cult, and later a conference center, but in the hands of Tennessee-based Oliver Hospitality, it’s living its best life: as an elegant getaway that takes advantage of Northern California’s jaw-droppingly rugged cliffs and foggy harbors.
The new design reflects a coastal palette with mossy greens and rich browns. “Cedar paneling, artisanal Heath Ceramics tiles from the Bay Area, and abundant millwork contribute to a sense of connection with the surroundings,” says Oliver Haslegrave, whose Home Studios group led the renovation. “And oversize windows offer expansive views of the lush wilderness.” Sight lines include Point Reyes National Seashore, home to coastal trails and tule elk, found only in California.
The nearby Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co. stocks rustic blues and spicy pimento cheese, and for a taste of Tomales Bay itself, Hog Island Oyster Co. gives tours and shucking classes. —Kimberley Lovato
