The Best Places to Stay in Marfa, Texas

Fifty five rooms on the original 1880s hotel footprint, rebuilt by Carlos Jimenez Studio in concrete, plywood and steel, with an art collection hung through the public rooms. It is the one address in Marfa where you can check in, eat dinner, have a drink and buy a book without moving your car.

Bar Saint George and the LaVenture restaurant are both on site, along with a seasonal pool, a fitness room and Hey I Like It Here, the hotel shop and gallery. The courthouse is two blocks north and the Chinati Foundation is a ten minute drive south.

Twenty four rooms in a horseshoe around a courtyard, originally built in 1959 and gutted and reworked by Bob Harris of Lake Flato Architects for a 2005 reopening. Every room opens onto the breezeway rather than an interior corridor, which is the whole point of a motel and the thing most renovations throw away.

The pool and the courtyard planting do more work here than the rooms do. If you want to spend an afternoon reading outside instead of driving, this is the better of the two design hotels in town.

A compound of courtyard suites rather than a corridor of hotel rooms, twelve of them by the property's own count, each with a kitchen and a private patio. One of them is a 1950s bomb shelter that was converted rather than filled in.

Sources disagree on the unit count, which is what happens when a property adds rooms a few at a time, so treat the number as approximate and the format as the point. Kitchens matter in a town where the restaurants keep short and shifting hours.

The building opened in 1892 as lodging for railroad travelers and spent most of the twentieth century as a hotel and way station. A long restoration kept the adobe and the two story form and put kitchens, mini splits and gas fireplaces inside it.

The eleven units range from two bedroom apartments down to studio efficiencies, and the shared second floor balcony, ground floor gallery and screened atrium are the parts guests actually use. One unit has an accessible bathroom. There is no elevator.

El Cosmico's downtown annex, built in 1931, is a 3,800 square foot apartment with two king bedrooms, private bathrooms and full living, dining and kitchen rooms behind panoramic windows. The base rate covers four guests and it sleeps up to eight with roll-aways.

This is the only part of El Cosmico that survived the closure of the original campground, and it is the best answer in Marfa for a group of four to eight who want one address downtown instead of three separate rooms.

A compound of three houses, the Love House, the Rock City House and Abuelitas Next Door, sharing a courtyard with a stock tank pool, a semi-outdoor billiards room and a glass and adobe dining shed. Guests get an exercise room and two electric bikes.

It doubles as a wedding and event venue, which is worth knowing both ways. Book the whole compound and you have the run of it. Book one house on a weekend and you may be sharing the courtyard with a party.

A small self service property in a remodeled family adobe, six rooms in total. Four are European style with communal baths, two have en suite bathrooms, and every room has a mini fridge, microwave, coffee maker and its own air conditioning.

Check-in is contactless, parking is on site and behind a gate, and there is a shared lounge, a covered patio and a grill. It is the most straightforward way to sleep within walking distance of downtown without paying design hotel rates.

A plain motel on the east edge of town with rooms the property advertises at over 450 square feet, plus fridges, microwaves, a seasonal outdoor pool and pet friendly options. Nobody books it for the design. They book it because it is clean, cheap and large.

It is also the closest lodging to the Marfa Lights viewing area nine miles east on Highway 90, which matters if you plan to go out after dark and come back without a twenty minute drive at both ends.

Seven container homes, six built from 20 foot containers and one from a 40 foot container, each with a queen bed, a private bathroom, a mini fridge, a microwave and a rooftop deck. The decks are the reason to book, because Marfa's sky after dark is the main attraction and you do not have to leave the property to see it.

It shares a phone line and a reservations email with the Riata Inn next door, so the two are run together. With El Cosmico closed, this is the nearest thing Marfa still has to a glamping stay.