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Downtown McMinnville is about to get its first-ever full-service luxury lodging—the Atticus Hotel, a four-story, 36-room boutique hotel that is now taking reservations from May 2018 forward.
The team behind the Atticus is made up of two Oregon natives deeply rooted in McMinnville.
McMinnville resident Erin Stephenson, along with business partner Brian Shea, renovated a historic bank seven years ago to open their first McMinnville hotel, Third Street Flats. A couple years later, the pair followed this up with another boutique location called the Odd Fellows Lodge.
But unlike Stephenson's prior ventures, the Atticus will be a newly constructed building.
"The site of the hotel was a parking lot, so we're doing the reverse of pave paradise and put up a parking lot," Stephenson says.
The Atticus is what Stephenson calls "the grand dream," a luxury hotel with a valet, a concierge, locally-roasted coffee and tea and a high-quality hotel restaurant—celebrity chef John Gorham's newest restaurant Third and Tasty.
"There's an awesome culinary scene already going on, so to be able to have John Gorham come into that scene and bring Third and Tasty is absolutely amazing," Stephenson tells WW. "It builds on the excitement and helps cement McMinnville as a destination for fine wine and fine food."
Stephenson says she reached out to Gorham about opening a restaurant in the Atticus.
"I think he got really excited about a small, beautifully-carried, independently-owned and operated hotel in the heart of the Willamette Valley," she says. "He was excited about the vision and felt like it was a good fit for his brand."
Third and Tasty will serve house-made charcuterie and many of the signature brunch and dinner dishes familiar from Gorham's Portland restaurants Tasty n Alder and Tasty n Sons, but will add the fancy Spanish Josper charcoal oven Gorham uses at his tapas spot Toro Bravo. The wine list will focus on the Willamette Valley, but will also include European selections.
Stephenson says McMinnville's wine culture will attract guests from all over the world.
"Willamette Valley is the number one wine region in the world and that's been huge. Oregon wine is a big story on the international scene," says Stephenson. "We're excited to have them come here and experience all these beautiful boutique wineries."