So nice, in fact, that it's been voted (drum roll please) America's best restroom.
Flush in the middle of downtown Nashville, the luxury hotel and its ground-floor men's bathroom are definitely the head (so to speak) of the class.
The redoubtable restroom is art-deco style with gleaming lime-green-and-black leaded glass tiles, lime-green fixtures, terrazzo floor and a two-seat shoeshine station.
"You just can't find anything like it anywhere else," says Janet Kurtz, director of sales and marketing at the hotel.
The restroom won the honor in online voting sponsored by Cincinnati-based Cintas Corp., which supplies restroom hygiene products and services. The company says "tens of thousands" of people voted over two months last summer. Precise numbers are kept, well, private.
Criteria were hygiene, style and access to the public. The highfalutin honor has earned the restroom entry to "America's Best Restroom Hall of Fame."
The restroom has four stools, three urinals, four sinks, spotless mirrors and a Sultan telephone that connects to the front desk.
It's so famed that Southwest Airlines pilots on their descent into Nashville have encouraged passengers to visit it.
"It gets a lot of word of mouth," Kurtz said. "People see it and fall in love with it."
When a reporter called to set up a 1 p.m. guided tour of the restroom, Kurtz jumped at the chance to assault the privacy of a male cathedral and show off the hotel centerpiece.
"That's ideal. But we may have to move into the bar because we have a lot of traffic then," she said.
And, (how do you put this delicately?) women seem attracted to it.
Lita Esquinance of Bradley County, Tenn., guides friends to the restroom for a discreet peek just about every time she visits Nashville. One of them, Sonja Luckie, jokingly summed up her visit with this discerning observation:
"For men, it's very stimulating."
For women who want to look inside, the protocol is to wait (patiently) outside for a few minutes to make sure it's clear to enter. Then, to avoid a startling confrontation, it's still helpful to knock first. Perhaps twice.
A women's restroom is right down the hall, but gets far less attention.
"It's a landmark of Nashville," said a smiling John Brown of Nashville, a utility manager who had just availed himself of the men's facility during his lunch break as he does about once a month.
The hotel, built in 1910 and renovated in 2003, has 122 guest rooms and suites. The restroom, down the hall from the hotel bar and restaurant, dates back to 1939.
The hotel took its name from the Nashville estate of President Andrew Jackson, a feisty fellow who no doubt would defend the honor of having a hotel with an ostentatious john named for his home. Room rates are $229 to $2,500 a night.
Do they leave the light on for you? Not necessarily, but the famous restroom is cleaned hourly.
"We remove the linens and wipe it down," Kurtz said proudly. In her six years at the hotel she has never used the men's restroom. But just wait.
"I hope they have a ladies' night sometime."
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