Anvil Hotel

Character and identity

A 49-room reinvention of a mid-century motel built on the bones of a former blacksmith shop, the Anvil sits in downtown Jackson, painted an inky dark green that reads almost ominous from the street. Inside, Brooklyn's Studio Tack has done the heavy lifting: a lobby anchored by a cast-iron fireplace, a mercantile stocked with Woolrich blankets and moccasins, and rooms layered with custom cast-iron beds, kilim rugs over parquet, beadboard walls and brass fixtures in a slate-and-wood frontier palette. Glorietta, the in-house restaurant, plates Asian-inflected Italian (grilled artichoke with chili aioli, whole branzino in coconut broth) alongside cocktails from the Death & Co. team.

Who's it for

Bottom line

What you're paying for here is design, location and Glorietta, not square footage or service infrastructure. The rooms are small and the walls thin, but the styling and price-to-walkability ratio are hard to beat in Jackson. Book a room at the end of the hallway (204, 208 or 212) to dodge neighbour noise, and plan at least one dinner downstairs.