Hotel Emma is one of a kind industrial hotel in downtown San Antonio, Texas. I’ve never encountered any hotel like it before.
It’s hard to explain my excitement of being there as a design lover. When I glanced at the gorgeous hotel lobby, I wanted to hop and skip into there like a kid at an amusement park. My husband knew I would go crazy over photographing this hotel with my cameras; my DSLR and cell phone. I’m geeky like that and he knows it well.
The reason for our stay at Hotel Emma was for our special celebration. My husband and I wanted to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary there during our family visit in San Antonio from overseas. (Otherwise, we can’t afford to stay.)
In case you don’t know, my family and I currently live in Manila, Philippines for my husband’s job. A year in Manila has flown by. (For our 10th year anniversary, we also did a staycation and stayed at Park Hyatt in Tokyo, which at the time was best known for the movie “Lost In Translation”. My family in Tokyo watched our two girls then.)
This time, thanks to my mother-in-law in San Antonio, who took care of our three children, the stay without our kids was made possible. Our kids were happy that they’d got to spend some quality time with their grandmother and had a wonderful night. We were extremely grateful for her help and willingness to spend the time with them. We know that it’s not easy.
History Of Hotel Emma
Hotel Emma was originally Pearl’s Brewhouse built in 1894. A couple from Germany, Otto and Emma Koehler, came to San Antonio in the late 1800’s. In 1899 Otto became the president of the San Antonio Brewing Association, later the Pearl Brewery. It stayed as a brewery for a century until when Kit Goldsbury’s Silver Ventures bought the brewery in 2001. The old building, which was used for brewery in the Historic Pearl district in San Antonio, was restored and converted into a beautiful hotel. In 2015, Hotel Emma was opened. Now Historic Pearl is known as a culinary and cultural village in San Antonio. You can read the brief history of the Pearl and the hotel in the photo as well as the links below.
Source
Hotel Emma
Pearl Brewing Company, TSHA
About Emma
When I learned about Hotel Emma, it intrigued me to know the origin of the name. During my research, I came across fascinating articles about the hotel and Emma.
The hotel was named after Emma Koehler, a businesswoman who took over the brewing company after the death of her husband, Otto Koehler, the former president of the company in 1914. Click below for more details in the article.
The Girl with the Pearl Beering, San Antonio Magazine
It is inspiring to read about her courageous act and leadership as a woman to manage a company in the time when women’s social status and their working environment were in such a different place. (For a frame of reference, the 19th amendment to grant women the right to vote in the U.S. was ratified in 1920. It means that she became a head of a company 6 years before women finally were allowed to vote in the country.)
Now that you know about Emma Koehler, you have got to read about the astonishing facts on the strange coincidence in relation to the name, Emma. It wasn’t just one Emma who was involved in the story. There were actually 3 Emma’s.
The Story of The Three Emmas Cocktail
The true little-known story of the Three Emmas of San Antonio’s Pearl Brewery
13 things to know about Hotel Emma’s namesake, Emma Koehler, My San Antonio
Photo Tour
I took a number of photos at Hotel Emma. The hotel was filled with inspirations for decorating space that you could apply at home; Styles of furniture, placement of it, flowers in vases, coffee table ideas, books as decoration, selection of pillow cases and area rugs, wall decoration, lamps, and so forth. Every detail seems to have been meticulously calculated. I read somewhere that the history of the Pearl Brewery was studied and reflected into the design. I can’t remember where I read it, though… The culture of the area in Texas were also considered and integrated into design as well.
For an article about the hotel design, please click the link for the article below.
Hotel Emma: Pearl’s Crown Jewel
I hope you’ll enjoy the virtual tour of the hotel.
LIBRARY
STERNEWIRTH
Sternewirth is a lounge bar in Hotel Emma. We went there after dinner at Supper for a couple of drinks. I didn’t bring my big DSLR camera because it was an anniversary date night. Below is the only photo of the interior I have taken on my cell phone. The interior design of the bar is really neat and my cell phone camera unfortunately did not do the justice.
THE ROOM WE STAYED
DINNER AT SUPPER
BREAKFAST AT SUPPER
HISTORIC PEARL
I hope that you were able to find some interior design inspirations through the photos of Hotel Emma which I took on my DSLR as well as my cell phone. Simplicity and no clutter were two major things about the hotel. With blank space on the walls, you could appreciate the design of the building itself. It was such a special experience for my husband and myself to be able to spend the night at Hotel Emma.
I am grateful for my husband who thought of the idea to have a staycation in order to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. A stay at a luxury hotel was beyond what I imagine and expected. (We had already celebrated our anniversary over a fancy dinner in Manila, Philippines, on the actual day.) He’s got many amazing qualities and values that I fell for him in the first place. His thoughtful gesture for our 20th anniversary made me fall in love with him all over again.
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