Graduate by Hilton Nashville

The pool

• 12th-floor pool at White Limozeen
• Nashville skyline
• May–September
• Reservation required for everyone

Why it's on the list

The 12th-floor pool belongs to White Limozeen, the rooftop bar, not the hotel — so a reservation is required for everyone, guests included, and only from May to September. Worth the planning: the bar program is better than it needs to be, and the skyline reads as a clean, low-horizon Nashville silhouette that earns the elevation.

The stay

The Graduate is the fun one — a twelve-story, 205-room hotel that opened in 2020 on West End across from Vanderbilt, running maximalist Nashville design from lobby to roof: Poindexter's all-day café, an animatronic-critter karaoke bar at street level, and full Dolly Parton worship at White Limozeen up top. Midtown is a deliberate trade — the Vanderbilt end of town instead of a room above the honky-tonks, with Lower Broadway a short ride away. At $$ it's one of Nashville's better values — book it for the kitsch done this well and the pink rooftop, and plan ahead: the pool needs a White Limozeen reservation even for hotel guests.