Located in the heart of the Museum District in Houston’s Montrose neighborhood, Hotel Saint Augustine is a new property from Austin’s hospitality group, Bunkhouse Hotels, now softly open in the city’s cultural epicenter. A sprawling brand-new build located on Museum Row adjacent to the Menil Collection campus near the Menil Drawing Institute and Rothko’s Chapel, Saint Augustine is their first hotel in Houston, home to 71 hotel rooms and suites, an all-day lobby lounge, listening room, and an intimate event space, with a destination restaurant and a cloistered circular courtyard pool set to open in mid-January 2025 to mark the full opening. In keeping with the hospitality group’s tradition of naming properties after patron saints, the hotel’s origin has several references: the patron saint of printing given the proximity to the Menil Drawing Institute; Houston’s co-founder Augustus Chapman Allen; and the abundance of Saint Augustine grass throughout Houston.
Post Company, the New York and Wyoming-based design studio, collaborated with Bunkhouse Hotels on the interior design of the hotel to create a retreat that feels like stepping into a private curator’s home, drawing inspiration from the spirit of the museum collection, the de Menils actual home, and of Houston itself—a duality of old world and new, contemporary and classical with a rich diversity and a forward-thinking sensibility—resulting in a surrealist design that reflects the essence and culture of the dynamic city. With architecture by Texas firm and longtime collaborators Lake|Flato, five small two-story buildings spread across 2.2 acres blend seamlessly into the neighborhood’s residential character, intersected by a series of lushly landscaped courtyards and winding outdoor pathways amidst mature heritage oaks. Each building is connected by open air bridges and porches to create a residential feeling, with brick exterior walls leading to screened porches and a series of inviting, lush gardens from Austin-based landscape architects Ten Eyck, working alongside Hempstead’s The John Fairey Garden for years cultivating mostly native plants that will provide lush views year round.
The food and beverage venues are helmed by Houston’s well-known chef and restaurateur Aaron Bludorn and front of house partner, Cherif Mbodji, from the now-open Augustine Lounge and Listening Room, offering an all day menu alongside a full bar to the (soon-to-open) premiere restaurant, Perseid, offering a new take on the quintessential neighborhood bistro paying homage to the global influencers defining Houston’s food and culture through the lens of the Gulf Coast. Accessible to the public now, the Augustine Lounge and Listening Room are comprised of a multitude of seated gathering areas, including an elongated common table with seating to match and an outdoor courtyard.
Bunkhouse currently operates six (of its ten) hotels in Texas, including five in Austin and one in San Antonio, and recently announced another Houston project set to open in 2025 in the Heights neighborhood, Hotel Daphne, while they recently expanded to Louisville with Hotel Genevieve and Mexico City with Hotel San Fernando.
