5 minute read
Design Excursion
Design Excursion
MOTIV INTERIORS BRINGS LONG-TERM VISION TO SHORT-TERM RENTAL DESIGN
BY NICOLE CHILDREY | PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOEY BRADSHAW
You learn a lot about hospitality design working as a restaurant server. Or, at least, MOTIV Interiors founder and principal designer Anna McGary sure did.
“Hospitality is really just about anticipating your guests’ needs,” says McGary, who worked in restaurants for a dozen years — including a stint at the famed Jimmy Kelly’s Steakhouse — before building her interior design business.
“My first restaurant job in Nashville was at the Cheesecake Factory. So, there were like 500 menu items, right? I learned really quickly how to guide people toward what they wanted by educating them, kind of homing in... The skills I learned educating people through a menu are exactly the same when it comes to educating them through all the customization options for furniture and window treatments and colors.”
Finding focus is key to any interior design process, but it’s vital for short-term rental investment properties in Nashville — still one of the globe’s “Best Bachelorette Party Destinations” according to Travel + Leisure, Glamour, Cosmopolitan and the many, many ladies swaying on Nashville Party Barge excursions downtown.
Almost 17 million tourists came to Music City in 2024, the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. says. About 1.2 million of those folks stayed in short-term rental spaces, which, according to a 2024 tally touted by the Nashville Area Short Term Rental Association, numbered almost 9,400.
That’s a lot of guests with a lot of lodging money to spend. It’s a whole lot of competition too.
From McGary’s point of view, savvy owners aren’t ignoring the numbers, and they’re meeting their need to stand apart by creating fun, focused, objectively eyegrabbing spaces.
“There are a lot more of these properties, but individual properties are making less because the market’s more saturated,” she says. “If you want to be competitive, you have to have a really strong theme.”
Inside ‘Nashville Amplified’
This is where hospitality-minded interior designers come in.
MOTIV doesn’t work entirely (or even mostly) on shortterm rentals, but McGary has been bringing her hospitalitycentered perspective and sustainability-inspired point of view to a growing number of them.
Her Atlanta-based clients on a recent East Bank project chose “Champagne hot tub” flavors, with a side of Nashville history. Tough profile to balance, especially since the space is meant to be a family hangout four or so times a year and efficiently Airbnb-able the rest of the time.
McGary jumped into anticipating and delivering, shaping a Music City escape that’s now dubbed “Nashville Amplified.”
She made the space sing for the Nashelorettes, commissioning brightly colored and highly Instagrammable murals, outfitting the bedrooms with stylish serenity, popping an inspiring skyline on the stairwell and adding Lower Broad neon to the roof deck.
MOTIV’s founder made sure the clients had their own subtle but palpable presence too. Carefully placed decor pieces speak to the couple’s interests without taking away from guests’ home-away-from-home experience: Dynamic dog prints from Chauvet Arts nod to the veterinarian; a copper-colored aeronautical piece highlights the flight instructor.
“Little hints,” McGary says. “The guests would never really make a connection.”
Making a Nashville Connection
Visitors do want to make a real connection with Nashville though. And ideally, a short-term rental’s design — with all the details that come together to complete it — will help foster that.
“If you’re visiting a place, you don’t want (your accommodations) to feel bland,” McGary says. “No offense to hotel chains, but they don’t often have that local culture. So any chance we can bring in a local artisan, bring the local vibe, it’s going to provide a better experience for those tourists and make them want to come back to Nashville.”
Step one in short-term rental design: getting clear on who you want to host and who’ll be most interested in staying in your specific Nashville-area neighborhood.
“Where the property is located has a lot to do with how you design it,” McGary says. “If you have a property near Percy Priest Lake or Old Hickory Lake, you’re going to want to target families that are there for summer vacation. Versus East Bank — it’s gonna be bachelorettes.”
Wherever an individual space’s design goes, thematically, you can help cement the Nashville connection by leaning into Music City’s creative class. MOTIV’s portfolio shows how that plays out in practice.
“Nashville Amplified” includes a long breakfast (or cocktail) bar built by Good Wood Nashville out of salvaged local timber, original artwork from O Gallery, seating from MasayaCo, framed work from local photographer Keith Dotson and a slew of other Nashville-sourced details.
McGary intentionally leans into local love for every project, whether the space is hosting tourists or homeowners. As a firm that focuses on sustainability, MOTIV places an emphasis on how local sourcing can celebrate community while allowing owners and designers to minimize every mile that comes between ideation and completion.
“The closer you can source, the less fossil fuels and packaging you’re gonna have,” McGary says. “It’s a winwin. And I think looking for win-win situations is what sustainability is all about.” NI
