The Jesse Hotel & Bar

The Jesse Hotel & Bar reopened a 1907 downtown Reno building — previously the Royal Hotel, then the Reno Jazz Club and the Lincoln Lounge — as a six-room independent boutique hotel in June 2019. Owner Piper Stremmel restored the space with Rushton-Smith and added Estella, a Mexico City-inspired restaurant, on the ground floor.

The place

306 E. 4th Street in downtown Reno, a block long known for its early-20th-century commercial buildings rather than the casino strip along the river.

The concept

The building dates to 1907, when Italian immigrant John Corsiglia built the Royal Hotel here to a design by local architects Woodard & Comstock, with 14 guest rooms over a ground-floor bar. It passed through several names and owners over the following decades before becoming the Reno Jazz Club around 2001 and then the Lincoln Lounge from 2007 to 2018. Independent owner Piper Stremmel bought and restored the building, working with Rushton-Smith on the renovation, and reopened it in June 2019 as The Jesse Hotel & Bar with just six rooms — Parke, Laughlin, Quinby, Bell, Renault and Hadley — kept small and individually finished rather than expanded to a standard hotel room count.

Dining & wellness

Estella, a taco and mezcal restaurant drawing on Mexico City flavors under chef Harrison Cooper, opened downstairs the following month; the hotel's own full-service bar serves coffee from early morning and cocktails from local bartenders Ilona Smith and Nicole Barker into the evening, with an indoor and patio lounge. Guests have access to Italian bicycles, and pet-friendly rooms are available.