Kelly Wearstler’s Quill Room balances ‘Southern charm and refined modernism’

A new bar at the Austin Proper Hotel embraces a gleeful mix of influences, with vintage pieces and period-inspired patterns creating the sense of a bygone era.

Kelly Wearstler designed the bar, having already worked on the Austin hotel’s interior design when it opened in 2019. She’s adopted a lived-in palette for the bar and restaurant, with plenty of buttery leather armchairs, wooden furniture, and loungers in earthy floral upholstery.

The Quill Room has flashes of grandeur via gold wall coverings based on designs created in the 1920s and mirrored, gold-framed screens. Wearstler has brought in a few elements of Southern hospitality, including an illuminated, self-playing Edelweiss piano that has echoes of the Texas saloon.

Wearstler describes the bar as a ‘balance between Southern charm and refined modernism’. The Quill Room’s menu has a similar mix of influences, with a specialist martinis list and French and Italian-inspired bites such as foie gras custard and tuna carpaccio.

The Quill Room at the Austin Proper Hotel, 600 W 2nd St, Austin, TX 78701, United States