Hotel Pontotoc

Hotel Pontotoc reopened in August 2025 after a three-year restoration of an 1906 building that had spent four decades as a private home and recording studio. The result is a 10-room boutique hotel in downtown Memphis with a basement cocktail bar, The Dame, and a design built around the building's layered, unlikely history.

The place

Hotel Pontotoc sits at 69 Pontotoc Avenue in downtown Memphis near Central Station, in a red-brick building dating to 1906 that has cycled through nearly every use a Memphis building can have.

The concept

Built in 1906 to serve railroad and riverboat travelers, the building operated for decades as a hotel — including a long run as a family-style hotel and social hub for the local Greek community under the Touliatos family — before artist Leigh Davis bought it in 1980 and turned it into a private residence with a recording studio in the basement, ending its life as a hotel for roughly four decades. Partners Tony Kuhn (Flywheel Group) and Joseph Lewis (The Medicine Factory) acquired the property in 2022 and spent three years on a structural restoration — asbestos and lead-paint removal, new windows, rebuilt floors — before reopening it in August 2025 as a 10-room boutique hotel, down from as many as 30 rooms historically. Designer Ann Parker of Parker Design Studio gave each room a distinct theme built around layered wallpaper and salvaged architectural fragments, including an old organ, a pinball machine and a wooden bed frame repurposed as a chandelier.

Dining & wellness

The Dame, a basement cocktail bar and wine lounge occupying the space of the former 1970s Cellar Club, serves craft cocktails and a curated wine list alongside charcuterie boards; it leans on drinks rather than a full dining menu. A landscaped western patio hosts live music and private events.