Spend a weekend savoring songs—from birds and humans—at Merriweather Lakehouse Hotel in Columbia, Maryland. The nature- and music-inspired hotel is a tree-lined walking path away from Merriweather Post Pavilion, the iconic concert venue. The hotel’s one-of-a-kind partnership with The Birdsong Project, launched in 2023, adds birdsong to the music mix.
An optional immersive in-room experience includes a boxed record set of more than 200 tracks of original music and bird-related spoken poetry. Spread the 20 art-covered albums across the floor and have fun choosing tracks to play on a Crosley record player from a flock of musicians and writers. Poets Ocean Vuong, Joy Harjo and Ada Limón are featured (some reading their own work), and actors such as Sean Penn and Daryl Hannah (who reads Pablo Neruda’s “Ode to the Hummingbird”) lend their voices to more, as well as music performed by Elvis Costello, Beck, Bette Midler and others.
The experience can be booked with a balcony/lakeview room or a suite and also includes boxed water, trail mix and a pair of Warby Parker “Birdoculars” to borrow for spotting birds from your balcony or during exploration of the walking trails. Raptors, terns, flycatchers, swallows, thrushes, warblers and orioles are just a few you may find.
The Maryland Bird Guide is one project element that’s meant to be taken home. The guide, which was authored and co-illustrated by local birding enthusiast Xaviana Leis when she was 11 years old, is full of fun facts about birds of prey and backyard birds.
Nods to Merriweather Post Pavilion are scattered throughout the 212-room hotel in posters from concerts past and guest room photographs of performers through the decades, such as Janis Joplin and Led Zeppelin.
The Osprey Cafe, the Rookery Bar & Lounge and the restaurant Lāk are all located on the lobby level, and the floor-to-ceiling windows of each overlook Lake Kittamaqundi. Lāk’s menu changes seasonally, featuring locally sourced ingredients from Maryland farms and seafood suppliers.
Rates begin at $319 per night; $419 for a balcony suite with Birdsong Project amenities.
Better still: Combine your visit with some live music at the famed open air concert pavilion (walk or take the hotel’s VIP shuttle service) and grab a bite from the midnight munchies snack cart when you return.
Merriweather Lakehouse Hotel, 10209 Wincopin Circle, Columbia, Maryland, 410-730-3900