Available now: The 21c ‘Queen’s Gambit’ hotel room with chess pieces on the ceiling

It’s official. The home of the Sport of Kings is now the home of the Game of Queens. Thanks to “The Queen’s Gambit,” a best-selling novel by the late author Walter Tevis, and a Netflix miniseries viewed by upwards of 60 million people, Lexington is once again in the celluloid spotlight.

And if you want to spend a night or a weekend in Elizabeth Harmon’s world — complete with larger than life chess pieces above your bed — Lexington’s 21c Museum Hotel has your room ready.

Tevis’s novel and the miniseries are set in Lexington and center around Harmon, a fictional anti-heroine chess whiz whose success is due in equal parts to her math genius and hallucinatory drugs. The creative team at VisitLEX, the city’s tourism arm, was quick to pounce on the popularity with two ways to promote the city — a driving tour and a room like no other at one of Lexington’s most unique hotels.

“’The Queen’s Gambit’ put a spotlight on Lexington and piqued people’s interest in the city that served as the backdrop for chess star Beth Harmon’s rise to fame,” says Mary Quinn Ramer, president of VisitLEX.

The Harmon Room at 21c

Even Harmon would be impressed with the Harmon Room at 21c Museum Hotel, a pop-up suite that is a collaborative effort of the hotel, VisitLEX, Cornett Advertising, interior designer Isabel Ladd and preservationist Lucy Jones.

The Harmon Room is a time capsule of American mid-century modern design, accented by vintage accessories and period furniture loaned by local antique shop Scout and private collectors such as Jones.

“I’ve been collecting furniture from that era for three decades,” says Jones, who loaned the hotel a pair of chairs and the vintage TV cabinet. “It’s a joy to bring to life the rich scenes from page and screen.”

The room’s serene color palette of sand, apple green, light blue and dark brown promises guests a peaceful night’s sleep in contrast to Beth’s vivid nighttime hallucinations. Custom wallpaper designed for the project by Alex K. Mason of Ferrick Mason Inc. features images of chess figures.

Scattered throughout the room are copies of Chess Review Magazine and rare chess books on loan from vintage bookstore Black Swan Books. There is even a handmade walnut and maple chessboard from Iron Bridge Woodshop for guests’ use during their stay.

In case you haven’t seen the miniseries and plan to, SPOILER ALERT.

The room’s most dramatic feature is a larger-than-life upside-down chessboard suspended from the ceiling over the bed as an homage to Beth’s drug-induced hallucinations. Made of plastic, the king and queen are 24 inches tall and along with the pawns, weigh less than a pound each.

If this isn’t remarkable enough, Brian Pulley, Director of Sales for 21c, says the entire project went from concept to completion in 10 days. The custom-made wallpaper, for example, was approved on a Thursday and on the wall by the following Saturday.

“Everyone working on this project did an incredible job,” says Pulley, who says he isn’t sure how long the Harmon Suite will stick around, although he admits, “we’re hoping for a very long time.”

The room goes for $234 a night, with an upcharge depending on certain nights.

So, if you’re tired of sheltering in place at your own place, a night spent in the Harmon Room at 21c would make for a pleasant (and safe) alternative as the hotel is running at one-third of its normal occupancy at what is already a slow time of year.

Couple a night in the Harmon Room with the Queen’s Gambit Driving Tour and you have the perfect Lexington staycation.

Lexington Queen’s Gambit Driving Tour

Knowing that they wanted to take advantage of the show’s global popularity, Ramer and her VisitLEX team, along with their partner, Cornett Advertising, created a Queen’s Gambit Driving Tour, designed as Ramer puts it, “to roll out the red carpet for visitors smitten by the show, and to offer a unique experience for locals during these trying times.”

The tour is a mix of places that currently exist and those that no longer do, but will be recognized and remembered by longtime Lexingtonians. Perhaps like Beth and her adopted mother, they once shopped at Ben Snyder Department Store, formerly located at what is now Robert F. Stephens Courthouse Plaza. Or maybe they had their high school prom at the Phoenix Hotel, where Beth’s chess mentor had a room. If you’re a newbie to Lexington, the stately hotel once occupied what is now Phoenix Park.

Several of the places prominently featured in the miniseries can still be seen. The former Henry Clay High School on Main Street, was the site of several of the show’s chess tournaments. It was here that Beth put those uppity Blue Devils (oops, Horned Owls in the series) in their place. Horned Owls? Maybe the producers thought it a more appropriate team name for those meeting over a chess board instead of a line of scrimmage.

While not exactly a tourist hot spot, New Circle Road gets a shout-out in the early moments of the first episode, and you can use it to detour to some of the area’s gorgeous horse farms (after first grabbing the makings for a picnic from Parkette Drive-In, a mid-century icon true to the show’s ’ time frame.)

It’s the Chevy Chase neighborhood, however, that really gives “Queen’s Gambit” fans a sense of place. The quiet, tree-lined streets and upscale shops and restaurants just a stone’s throw from the University of Kentucky, wasn’t just Beth’s place of residence in the series, it was also Tevis’s real-life hood. He learned to play pool at a friend’s house here before going on to write “The Hustler” (you just knew it would be a logical move from pool to chess, now didn’t you?)

Chevy Chase is also home to iconic spots which post-pandemic make for obligatory stops. Spots such as the one-of-a-kind shops housed in bungalows on Clay and Euclid Avenues; the college hangout Charlie Brown’s, with its worn leather sofas and fireplaces, and the Chevy Chase Inn, Lexington’s oldest bar and always worth a visit.

While you’re in the area, you can spend time outdoors walking the spacious grounds of Ashland, Henry Clay’s palatial home, or the campus of the University of Kentucky, Tevis’s alma mater where he earned a B.A. and M.A. in English and studied with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist A.B. Guthrie, Jr.

Wheeler’s Pharmacy, a Chevy Chase area icon for half a century, is a fitting substitute for the fictional Bradley’s Pharmacy and Country Store.

And while, sad to say, there’s no real-life counterpart to reel-life Lex Liquors, this is Central Kentucky, home to 14 distilleries and the Brewgrass Trail of craft beers, so plenty of opportunities to imbibe. Just make sure you designate a non-drinking driver and know that you owe them a steak dinner at Tony’s or Jeff Ruby’s.

This story was originally published January 8, 2021 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Available now: The 21c ‘Queen’s Gambit’ hotel room with chess pieces on the ceiling."