A Billionaire’s Houston Palace, San Antonio’s Best and a Fort Worth Original Give Texas Serious Top 15 Hotel Power
Travel + Leisure Picks The Best City Hotels In the United States
BY Shelby Hodge // 07.09.25
The Post Oak Hotel's helicopter pad among the amenities that earned the hotel a top national ranking.
The votes are in and Travel + Leisure readers have awarded Houston, Fort Worth and San Antonio hotels positions on its coveted list of the “15 Best City Hotels” in the United States.
Billionaire Tilman Fertitta’s Post Oak Hotel at Uptown tops the Texas trio at number seven in the country. In addition, it captured Travel + Leisure honors as the Best City Hotel in Houston. The swank hostelry is noted for exceptional amenities such as its own helipad, a Rolls Royce showroom, a 22,000-square-foot invitation-only penthouse suite, award-winning spa and everything luxury. Add significant artwork by Frank Stella, Robert Motherwell and Alex Katz.
The posh environs are the favored perch of visiting rock stars, Middle Eastern moguls and sports celebs. Most NBA teams stay there when they’re in town. Even then-presidential candidate Donald Trump landed at the hotel for stealth fundraising events. Four U.S. presidents have crossed the Post Oak Hotel portal. Security and privacy are paramount as those traveling under-the-radar can attest.
High honors are nothing new for the Post Oak Hotel as Forbes Travel Guide has bestowed Five Stars on both the hotel and the spa every year since 2020. The 2025 rankings were released in March.
San Antonio’s Hotel Emma, which boasts Michelin’s two Key honors, earned enough of the magazine’s reader votes to place at No. 13 on the Best City Hotels in the United States. Applause, applause for the unique property housed in the former 19th century Pearl Brewery building.
Bowie House, Auberge Resorts Collection in Fort Worth ranks No. 14 on the coveted list. Dallas PaperCity editor Billy Fong describes the remarkable hotel as “the love child of Ralph Lauren’s Rhinelander mansion in New York City’s Upper East Side (if it were premiering a new Western collection — chic and sophisticated, but still denim) and the Dutton family ranch in Yellowstone.”
The Top 15 City Hotels In the United States
No. 1 — Waldorf Astoria, Las Vegas
No. 2 — The Jefferson, Washington DC
No. 3 — Wentworth Mansion, Charleston
No. 4 — The Hay-Adams, Washington DC
No. 5 — L’Ermitage Beverly Hills
No. 6 — Pendry West Hollywood
No. 7 — The Post Oak Hotel at Uptown, Houston
No. 8 — The Eliot Hotel, Boston
No. 9 — John Rutledge House Inn, Charlestson
No. 10 — Hotel Maverick, Grand Junction, Colorado
No. 11 — Market Pavilion Hotel, Charleston
No. 12 — The Loutrel, Charleston
No. 13 — Hotel Emma, San Antonio
No. 14 — Bowie House, Auberge Resorts Collection, Fort Worth
No. 15 — The Spectator Hotel, Charleston
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