This New Luxury Hotel Is Helping Make Fort Worth, Texas, One of the Best Places to Go in 2024

There’s a new party in Fort Worth, Texas’ Cultural District, which Travel & Leisure editors named one of the top locations to visit in 2024. Arriving at 9 p.m. on a Friday, I was surrounded by groups of fun-loving Texans in cowboy hats and fur vests who had left their Rivians and Suburbans with the valet at the Bowie House, the newest addition to the Auberge Resorts Collection. They strolled through the art- and antique-filled lobby, which was richly textured with Texas longhorns, cowhide-upholstered club chairs, wool rugs, and a riot of equestrian elements, including paintings, statues, pictures, and saddles.

Following check-in, the front desk clerk provided a tour of the unfolding scenario. For a while, I was unsure whether I had entered a hotel lobby or a cocktail reception at a high-end antiques dealership – the type of establishment that required an appointment. The wood-paneled bar was alive with the sounds of elegant parties chatting over bottles of wine; senior couples sucking oysters by the fireplace; families slicing steaks in a separate dining area; and young professionals studying the excellent art collection. “The idea when you walk in is to feel like you’re at someone’s house,” Gaylord Lamy, the hotel’s general manager, explained.

The Bowie House, named after Alamo defender and legendary frontiersman James Bowie (pronounced BOO-eee), opened on December 1, 2023, with 88 flats, a magnificent spa, and a variety of social areas. If the resort has a distinct Fort Worth atmosphere, it is due in large part to the idea of its owner, Jo Ellard, a Dallas businesswoman and cutting horse hall of famer. (For those unfamiliar with modern equestrian competitions, a cutting horse and rider are judged on how effectively they remove a cow from its herd.) Her second passion is her art collection, which she has accumulated over the course of 15 years.