The Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta occupies the lower half of a Midtown tower on Fourteenth Street, and the neighbourhood is the sell: the High Museum of Art, the Woodruff Arts Center and Piedmont Park are all within an easy walk, which in car-bound Atlanta counts as a small miracle. The hotel dates from the early 1990s and reads that way in the flattering sense, with a double-height marble lobby, a sweeping staircase, proper chandeliers and service that keeps genuine Southern warmth beneath the Four Seasons polish.
The 244 rooms are large, calm and traditional, with marble bathrooms and windows over the Midtown skyline; ask high and north-facing for the best of it. Bar Margot downstairs is the social engine, a proper cocktail room with Southern-inflected cooking that draws locals as much as guests, and the indoor saline pool under natural light is a better urban pool than the city deserves. There is a compact spa and a well-kept gym.
It is classic rather than cutting-edge, and travellers wanting rooftop scenes should look to the newer openings along the Beltline. But for arts weekends, business trips and anyone who values walking to dinner and a concert, it remains Atlanta’s most dependable luxury address.
