Knoxville, United States

The Oliver Hotel

Price per night from$199.00

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD199.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

The Oliver Hotel Photos

Style

Deco-dent Southern belle

Setting

Downtown Knoxville

Explore

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The Oliver Hotel is a sturdy, 19th-century brick pile lined with handsome window arches on one side of Knoxville’s Market Square. The building has worn many historical hats over the years, from bakery to ice-cream parlour, dancehall to hotel. Today’s form is an elegant overhaul of the original, preserving period features, and finished in polished, modern-vintage style. A series of sharply styled guest rooms await behind two-tone painted doors, with be-chevroned carpets and a blue-and-peach colour scheme that brings the subtle updated-deco theme together. Onsite food and drink spots include the Oliver Royale restaurant and the speakeasy-style Peter Kern Library – a true Knoxville highlight and possibly the pinnacle of the building’s centuries-spanning evolution.

Smith Extra

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A bottle of wine on arrival

Facilities

Photos The Oliver Hotel facilities

Need to know

Rooms

28, including 10 suites.

Check–Out

11am, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 3pm.

Prices

Double rooms from £193.68 ($233), including tax at 17.25 per cent.

More details

Breakfast isn’t served as part of your room rate, but you can get a banging Southern brunch from Oliver Royale (Friday to Sunday) or Tupelo Honey (Tuesday to Sunday).

At the hotel

Free WiFi, bikes available to borrow. In rooms: TV, minibar, coffee- and tea-making kit, free bottled water, bathrobes, Roil Luxury toiletries.

Our favourite rooms

The design concept remains doggedly faithful to the theme throughout each appealing guest space, but we’ve fallen hard for the Oliver Suite, with its soaring 17-foot ceiling, dramatic above-bed chandelier, and comfy living room. Its corner position means you’ll get a view of Market Square and also of sculpture-dotted Krutch Park.

Packing tips

Hiking footwear for exploring Knoxville’s scenic network of greenways, and elasticated waistbands to accommodate the city’s amazing array of food.

Also

There’s a lift for wheelchair users to access the rooms. The Double Queen Room has ADA accessible bathroom features, such as a roll-in shower. Double Queen rooms can also be made into interconnecting rooms.

Children

Children are welcome to stay, but the hotel is certainly more finely geared towards cocktail-glugging and late-night gigging.

Sustainability efforts

Energy-saving lights are used throughout the hotel, including card-activated lighting in rooms and suites. Guests are encouraged to forgo daily towel and bed linen changes, helping to reduce the hotel’s energy and water use.

Food and Drink

Photos The Oliver Hotel food and drink

Top Table

The Oliver Royale patio is right on Market Square and wins points for the extra people-watching opportunities in downtown Knoxville.

Dress Code

Pin curls and collar bars.

Hotel restaurant

Presided over by executive head chef Darin Hoagland, Oliver Royale serves farm-sourced, seasonal dishes with a modern American feel. The dining room, edged with padded banquettes and lit with glowing globe lights, has a bar at the back stacked high with barrel-aged bourbons and infused whiskeys. Dinner is served here every night of the week from 4 to 10pm. Enjoy starters, such as tempura shrimp with udon, or tempting mains such as North Carolina trout with risotto or the much-loved Royale Ramen, made with confit pork belly and home-made kimchi. The restaurant also serves a flavour-packed brunch on Fridays from 10am to 3pm, and on Saturdays and Sundays from 9am to 3pm. Choose from comforting dishes, such as crab cake or chorizo benedict, and hot chicken and grits. There are more tasty mouthfuls to be had at Tupelo Honey café, serving modern Southern cuisine (shrimp and grits, honey-dusted chicken and biscuits) for brunch, lunch or dinner. It’s open Tuesday to Friday 11am to 9pm, Saturday 9am to 9pm, and Sunday 9am to 8pm.

Hotel bar

Hidden away in the Oliver is the speakeasy-style Peter Kern Library Bar, with its flickering tea lights, fireplace, and dark, mirror-hung walls. Sink into a cushioned banquette with a classic Old Fashioned or try a house favourite, such as the Pedrocito with mezcal, pemartin amontillado, cocchi torino and xocolatl mole bitters. From 5pm to midnight, you can order meals from the Oliver Royale dinner menu to enjoy here. The bar is open from 5pm to midnight Monday to Thursday, 5pm to 1am on Friday, 4pm to 1am on Saturday and 4pm to midnight on Sunday.

Last orders

The kitchen closes at 10pm nightly, but you can stay later to enjoy the bartenders’ creations.

Location

Photos The Oliver Hotel location
Address
The Oliver Hotel
407 Union Ave
Knoxville
37902
United States

The Oliver Hotel sits on the edge of buzzy Market Square in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Planes

McGhee Tyson Airport is around a 20-minute drive away. Hotel transfers are not available, so you’ll need to organise your own transport into Knoxville.

Automobiles

There’s no car park on site, but you can book valet parking for $22 a night. Alternatively, you can park in the Market Square Garage yourself for $7 a night.

Worth getting out of bed for

Catch a movie or gig at the historic Tennessee Theater (check out that decorative ceiling), or a music or dance performance at the Bijou Theater. It’s free to climb into the golden ball of the Sunsphere observation tower and look over the city, from the Tennessee River to the Great Smoky Mountains. You can nose around the local street art in Strong Alley, or browse more traditional artworks at the Knoxville Museum of Art. 

Local restaurants

There’s a lot of eating to be done in Knoxville, so take time to discover its many dinner options. Enjoy home-made pasta at Emilia, burgers and bourbons at Stock & Barrel or fried green tomatoes and po’ boys at Not Watsons

Local cafés

Grab your pancakes, omelettes and country breakfasts to set you up for the day from Pete’s Coffee Shop or crepes and coffee from The French Market

Local bars

There’s free live music every night of the week to enjoy with a local beer at the Preservation Pub, or grab a margarita and enjoy some night-time city views from the rooftop of Bernadette’s Crystal Garden. The Knox Brew Hub has you covered for all things craft beer.

Reviews

Photos The Oliver Hotel reviews

Anonymous review

By Mr & Mrs Smith

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this dapper Tennessee hotel and unpacked their Mason jar glasses, a full account of their whiskey-infused break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside the Oliver Hotel in Knoxville…

Smiling staff, well versed in that famous Tennessee hospitality, usher you into the colourful Oliver lobby. Inside, the subtle art deco and mid-century design cues complete a look that exudes maximum comfort with a vintage feel. The tall stairwell is crowded with large gold-framed prints that follow you up and down, and monochrome, fan-print walls make the sparkling bathrooms pop. Set right on the bounds of the animated Market Square, the hotel is well placed for exploring the city outside. You can hop on a hotel bike and pedal along the city’s greenways, grab an arm-length list of live music and dining recommendations from the staff, or pose for selfies in front of the city’s murals and street art pieces. We’ll certainly be back at the Oliver. On our return, you’ll find us in our new happy place: two Pisco Sours deep in the secret library speakeasy bar.

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Price per night from $199.00

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