Inside Chip and Joanna Gaines’s First Ever Hotel (2024)

It’s 9 a.m. on a sunny November morning, and a lineup of people can be seen entering a low-slung brick building in downtown Waco, Texas. This past week, the premises have seen a flurry of camera crews, staff members, and press guests, even locals driving by late at night to get a sneak peek. At last, Hotel 1928’s doors are officially open to the public.

The chic luxury boutique hotel—located just down the street from the town’s famed Magnolia Silos—is HGTV Fixer Upper series stars Chip and Joanna Gaines’s first foray into hospitality. It’s perhaps the renovators turned business titans’ most ambitious fixer-upper yet. The three-year-long project, started by the couple in 2020 at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic with the help of real estate company AJ Capital Partners, opened November 3. It spans three stories that contain three restaurants and bars, a library, an outdoor rooftop lounge space, and a ballroom that can hold an impressive 500 guests (hopeful brides were apparently vying to book the space before the flooring had even been installed). Beyond the hotel’s 33 rooms (which, starting at $375 a night, are also in high demand and booked until spring 2024), there’s a 12-bed bridal suite, complete with two pedicure stations.

While the property is recognizably Joanna—cozy furnishings, antique books used as props, playful combinations of patterns and textures—it’s a brave departure from her signature neutral color palette and shiplap-happy aesthetic. The lobby features moody black walls, checkered flooring, and gold accents that give it a sleek 1920s twist. Further on, a symmetrical stairway curves into a black-paneled library, complete with wingback chairs, tufted leather sofas, and a double-height wall of antique books. Louis Armstrong licks play in the background, beckoning guests to take a seat with drink in hand.

Further up at on-site restaurant, Bertie’s on the Rooftop, dusty rose pinks and greens—accentuated with maximalist botanical wallpaper—provide a refreshingly exuberant flair. Their muse? “We had this character in mind: our crazy aunt,” Joanna explains. “She’s this eclectic character who loves plants and wears really bright lipstick. What would it look like if she had a restaurant?” The private rooms on the second and third floors lean more heavily into Joanna’s trademark style, featuring a more neutral, calming palette with Magnolia pillows and knit throw blankets.

The hotel’s charm is due, in large part, to its place in the history of this burgeoning small town. It was erected in 1928 (thus the name) by a local chapter of Shriners, a social club known for its community outreach and philanthropy. They enlisted a fleet of Dallas architects—Herbert M. Greene, Edwin LaRoche, and George Dahl, and Wacoan Roy Ellsworth Lane—to design a state-of-the-art space that would serve as a gathering place for Wacoans for 75 years. With time, however (and a natural disaster—a tornado in 1953 that devastated most of the downtown area), the landmark property fell into oblivion—that is, before the Gaineses acquired it. “We hoped it would serve as an ode to Waco, for locals and out-of-town guests,” Joanna explains.

Early on in the design process, Joanna and her team took to the stacks to learn about Waco’s architectural and interior designs during the 1920s. “I tend to let the spaces we renovate inform the design approach we take,” Joanna says. She chose to retain as many architectural traits original to the building as possible. The lobby features stunning terrazzo floors. Above it, a coral Middle Eastern ceiling mural points to the building’s Moorish architecture. In one of the rooms, a massive metal door opens to an old safe that was once behind a teller’s window. Historic black and white photographs of Waco punctuate the building’s walls in nearly every room, the library is filled with vintage books, and the story of the original architects plays out in large books of photographs.

Joanna then brought in bespoke fixtures and furniture and mixed them with vintage pieces that she had scoured in years past and had kept in storage as they awaited the ideal nook. “We had a lot of fun leaning into that golden age of American culture and intentionally pairing colors and materials that sparked a sort of nostalgia for those roaring twenties,” she adds.

The hotel is the latest addition to the couple’s ever-growing Magnolia empire, which, since their start as reality TV stars two decades ago, has expanded into a TV, retail, and e-commerce juggernaut of dozens of businesses, including a bakery, a furniture line, and a home and lifestyle shop. The renovation will be documented in the new series Fixer Upper: The Hotel, which premiered November 8.