Hotel Emma

Emma Koehler took over the Pearl Brewery in San Antonio after her husband, Otto, was shot dead in 1914, and she kept it alive through Prohibition by turning its plant to other trades, ice cream and soft drinks among them. A century later the brewery's 1894 brewhouse on the San Antonio River became Hotel Emma, which opened in 2015 and carries her name.

History

Brewing on the site began in the 1880s, and the Pearl label became one of the best-known beers in Texas. Otto Koehler ran the San Antonio Brewing Association, which made it, until his death. His widow steered the company through the dry years and back into beer when Prohibition ended in 1933. The brewery passed through several owners in the later twentieth century and closed in 2001. Silver Ventures, the investment company of the San Antonio businessman Christopher Goldsbury, bought the site and set about turning its warehouses, stables and offices into a neighbourhood of restaurants, shops, flats and a campus of the Culinary Institute of America. The brewhouse, the tallest of the buildings, opened as a hotel in late 2015.

Architecture and design

The brewhouse is a brick industrial building with a tall central tower, built to house the brewing process floor by floor. Roman and Williams, the New York studio of Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch, designed the interiors and chose to keep the machinery: tanks, pipes, cast-iron columns and the old ammonia compressors stay in the lobby and public rooms, alongside leather sofas, Texas antiques and heavy wooden tables. The library holds some 3,700 books, many about Texas and the borderlands, and works as a sitting room for guests.

Rooms and suites

The 146 rooms and suites occupy the old brewhouse and a new wing that joins it. Rooms have high ceilings and large industrial windows, and Roman and Williams furnished them with custom pieces in leather and pale wood. Many look over the river or across the rooftops of the Pearl.

Dining

Supper, the hotel's restaurant, cooks American food with produce from Texas farms and opens onto the river path. Sternewirth, the bar, sits in the brewery's old tank room among cast-iron tanks, and takes its name from the brewery custom that allowed workers free beer during their shifts. The Larder is a small market and coffee shop. Beyond the hotel, the Pearl has a dense cluster of restaurants and bars within the same few blocks, and a farmers' market on weekend mornings.

Wellness

There is a rooftop pool with views over the Pearl, along with a fitness room. The river path, running south towards downtown, is used by joggers and cyclists from early morning.

Weddings and events

Hotel Emma takes weddings, receptions and private dinners in its event rooms, and the wider Pearl adds historic venues such as the restored Pearl Stable. Meetings are held on a small scale suited to a building of this size.

Location

The hotel stands at the northern end of the River Walk's Museum Reach, around two miles north of the Alamo and the downtown loop of the river. The river path runs past the door, and river taxis stop at the Pearl. The San Antonio Museum of Art, housed in the former Lone Star brewery, lies a little way downstream on the same stretch of river. San Antonio International Airport is about fifteen minutes away by car, and the Amtrak station east of downtown about ten. For a luxury hotel in San Antonio, it sits unusually close to the life of a real neighbourhood rather than the tourist core.