Hotel Jackson

Hotel Jackson

The town of Jackson lies at 6,000 feet at the southern end of the Jackson Hole valley, eight and a half miles from the airport, four miles from the southern boundary of Grand Teton National Park and an hour’s drive from the south entrance of Yellowstone, and Hotel Jackson occupies a block just off Town Square, close enough to the elk-antler arches that you hear the summer crowds before you see them. It opened in June 2015 as the first new luxury hotel in town in about fifteen years and the first LEED-certified hotel in Jackson, a 35,000-square-foot building by FFKR Architects of Salt Lake City with interiors by Kim Deetjen of TruexCullins in Burlington, Vermont, and it has 55 rooms and suites in the original building, joined in 2026 by The Retreat, a three-storey addition on the corner diagonal to the square with nine more suites, a 7,000-square-foot spa and a rooftop restaurant. It is owned by the Darwiche family, Jim Darwiche, a Lebanese-born jeweller who has done business in the valley since the 1970s, and his son Sadek, and it holds one Michelin Key. Inside, reclaimed wood and rough stone are set against clean, industrial lines, a combination Architectural Digest liked enough to call it the most beautiful hotel in Wyoming, and there is a small library named for Sacajawea. The guest rooms run 425 to 450 square feet, each with a gas fireplace and either a king or two queens, the third-floor Premium rooms adding a spa-style tub and, in one category, a Juliette balcony, while the suites are named for figures from the valley’s history (the 1,100-square-foot Jackson Suite after Davy Jackson, the fur trapper the valley is named for) and run up to the 2,100-square-foot three-bedroom Grand Teton Presidential, with the 700-square-foot Miller Suite, its wraparound deck and outdoor fireplace facing Snow King, the one to ask about. FIGS cooks Lebanese and Mediterranean food from Darwiche family recipes beneath a two-storey wood-burning fireplace, with some ingredients still brought in from Lebanon, and since September 2024 the kitchen has been led by Malyna Si, formerly of the Four Seasons in Orlando and the first woman to earn and hold a Michelin star in Florida, who also oversees Juliette, the rooftop restaurant on The Retreat, where seasonal American cooking comes with views over the square to the mountains. The spa, the only destination spa in downtown Jackson, has seven treatment rooms and a rooftop infinity hot tub. This is a town hotel first, and it is good at being one, with the ski resort at Teton Village about twenty minutes away on the complimentary winter shuttle, so that days begin with coffee and a bus and end with a walk back across the square to a fire already lit. The service has the manner of a family business in a small town, staff know the valley and treat guests as people who live there, and the crowd has always leaned towards jeans and sweaters, though The Retreat, with its on-call Range Rovers and private coordinators, has brought a sleeker guest along with it. The original rooms remain the better expression of the 2015 building and the better value, and the Retreat suites are for those who want something closer to a private residence on the square. You should not come if you want ski-in, ski-out mornings, wilderness quiet at night or a lodge among the trees, because this is downtown Jackson, two minutes from the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, and in July the square fills with tour groups from breakfast to midnight. You should come if you want to walk to dinner, keep a car for Grand Teton and Yellowstone, and return each evening to a fireplace and a plate of lamb from a Michelin-starred chef, in a hotel whose owners have been part of the town for fifty years. The short version: A 2015 hotel a block from Jackson’s Town Square, owned by the Lebanese-born Darwiche family, with 55 rooms and suites, nine newer suites in The Retreat, a Lebanese restaurant led by chef Malyna Si and a downtown spa.