Verbena Spa at Austin Proper Hotel

Slipping into Verbena Spa at Austin Proper Hotel feels like a warm embrace after escaping the buzzing downtown energy surrounding the building. The fourth-floor spa and fitness center, like the rest of the hotel, was conceptualized by influential West Coast designer Kelly Wearstler, who uses natural materials and earth tones as her palette.

Each of the five treatment rooms, plus a cozy, soothing lounge, is swathed in tactile textures like burlap, cotton, linen and natural wood. Men’s and women’s locker rooms feature spacious steam showers and vanity areas are stocked with Aesop’s line of botanical products and bedecked in stone, marble and brass details. The adjacent sunlit fitness center, which looks out onto Austin’s Second Street District, is filled with a collection of state-of-the-art equipment fit for a luxury resort and makes working out look almost as enticing as relaxing.

But relaxing will be inevitable once you step inside Verbena, and after you complete your treatment and take a long steam shower, you might just not want to leave.