1886, and it knows it. Lyndon Johnson proposed to Lady Bird at the Driskill Bar. The building alone is worth the room rate.
The Driskill Hotel opened in 1886 as a cattle baron's monument to Texas ambition — Colonel Jesse Driskill built it as the finest hotel west of the Mississippi, and the building's Romanesque Revival architecture, its longhorn steer busts above the main entrance, and its barrel-vaulted lobby still deliver that promise. Lyndon Johnson had his first date with Lady Bird here, planned his 1948 Senate campaign in the mezzanine, and watched his Presidential election results in the Driskill Bar. The hotel is the most historically charged building in Austin.
The 189 rooms are distributed across the original 1886 building and a 1929 addition. The original building rooms carry the full weight of the architecture — high ceilings, original woodwork, and the visual complexity of a building that was designed to impress. The 1929 wing rooms are larger and more conventional. The Driskill Suite, with its longhorn motif and its view of Brazos Street, is the most recognisable hotel suite in Texas.
The 1886 Café & Bakery serves the hotel's signature comfort-food menu — the chicken-fried steak and the Driskill migas are Austin institutions in themselves. The Driskill Bar is one of America's great hotel bars: dark wood, leather banquettes, a serious whiskey selection, and the ghosts of Texas politics past at every table. The hotel's location on 6th Street places it at the centre of Austin's live music corridor.
An anniversary at the Driskill is an anniversary in Texas history. The LBJ Suite, the Driskill Bar, the 1886 Café dinner — these are rooms and experiences that carry the weight of the building's 140-year narrative. For couples who value history as part of the occasion rather than merely as backdrop, the Driskill is the only Austin hotel that delivers it. See all anniversary hotels →
The Driskill is where Austin business gets done when the business is old enough to have a history of its own — political, oil, real estate, media. The Driskill Bar is Austin's most reliably private meeting space. The hotel's 6th Street location places it a short walk from the state capitol, the convention centre, and the University of Texas. See all business hotels →
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