You know what they say? Things always come a full circle. The hipster movement that had Williamsburg at its epicentre always seemed to be rooted in the rootin’-tootin’ Wild West; a frontier spirit of Betsy Ross flags, 1800s revivalism, and the great rivers.
And so, to the city of honky-tonks and lauded dive bars; live music and real life fucking cowboys. The Grand Ole Opry. Nashville, where the 1800s never really left, where the frontier spirit just became a way of life. And artisan coffee. That’s it, folks — the full circle, completed by a surefire hit of Brooklyn’s hipster elite branching out into Tennessee.
Beginning as a passion project to sooth the frenetic pace of Manhattan, Lyon Porter and Jersey Banks opened Williamsburg’s Urban Cowboy in 2014; its wild spirit quickly garnering international attention. Run by what they call a ‘dream-team of creative bastards’, their B&B appealed to the creative class through its on-the-point interiors and cultural ethos. Next stop? Home to some authentic rootin’ and tootin’.
Within two hours of Porter and Banks landing in Music City, they’d found the old Victorian mansion that would become Urban Cowboy Nashville — its eight suites and single rustic cabin accompanied by two shared parlours that give musicians, creatives, and bourbon obsessives a place to call home; just a five minute drive from Downtown and surrounded by all that hip East Nashville has to offer. Visually, the duo offer the term ‘Southwestern Deco’ which, in reality, is a hedonistic amalgamation of inspiration from the likes of infamous hippie commune Drop City, Buckminster Fuller and Black Mountain College, and all the Americana that has steeped this part of the world in romantic mysticism. Turn On, Check In, Cop Out.
