Fort Worth has never been short on swagger, but the swagger has always come with a kind of unfussy practicality — a city that wears its history the way it wears its boots. So when the Bowie House, Auberge Collection, opened smack in the middle of Fort Worth’s Cultural District in December of 2023, most locals assumed it would slide neatly into the familiar mix of polished hospitality and quiet wealth that defines this part of town. The hotel would go on to become a recognizable backdrop appearing in “Landman” Season 2 as a signifier of taste and money. But most viewers were missing the real story. The Bowie House isn’t just a hotel. It is, almost accidentally, one of the most unusual and ambitious art galleries in Texas.
Not a single wall was built with that intention.
Yet once Bowie House owner and lifelong collector Jo Ellard stepped inside the finished shell of the property, the shape of the place — its long corridors, generous lounges, and sunlit landings — presented a possibility she couldn’t ignore. The hotel could serve as a living extension of her home collection, a place where art didn’t hang behind velvet ropes but brushed past guests on their way to dinner. Ellard had spent more than twenty years collecting, filling rooms and storage units with pieces that never saw the light of day. The Bowie House, in her mind, became the ideal remedy: a space where art could be enjoyed, not stored.
The Gallery at Bowie House extends through hallways, lounges, stairwells, guest rooms, and even bathrooms, making the building a place where art is inseparable from the experience. Oh, and if you like a piece, there’s a good chance it’s for sale. The hotel has several QR code placards that guests can scan for information about the artwork inside. Bowie House also offers guided tours on Tuesdays and Saturdays at 1:30 p.m. each week, led by Gallery Director Emily Gregoire.
Gregoire, a curator whose calm precision anchors the space, moves through the hotel with the quiet confidence of someone who knows every story behind every piece.
“Nothing here is an afterthought,” she says. “Every wall is an opportunity.”
The collection began long before the hotel opened. For more than twenty years, Ellard amassed a private collection so large it eventually outgrew her homes and storage facilities. When the Bowie House came together, Ellard saw a chance to bring those pieces back into the world. Gregoire remembers Ellard walking the halls and remarking that the walls shouldn’t be empty. The result was a gallery unlike any traditional museum or commercial space — a hotel where every work is for sale and where the collection behaves like a living organism, constantly evolving as pieces move in and out. Within the first year, 90% of the original installation sold, leaving Gregoire to manage the turnover with the precision of a seasoned curator, keeping the gallery cohesive even as artists rotated in and out.
“Everywhere you look, there’s something,” Gregoire says. “It’s meant to feel alive, not sterile.”
The collection spans roughly 750 works. Only a select few works are part of the hotel’s permanent collection. That’s to say, certain pieces aren’t up for grabs, but most everything you see and touch inside this luxury space is yours for the right price.
“Joe has this habit of meeting artists and saying, ‘Can I collect your work, and do you want to be part of the gallery?’” Gregoire explains with a smile.
Among the first arresting works is a monumental pistol sculpted entirely from hand-tooled leather by Texas artist Lance Marshall Boen. The piece is free-standing at an angle and extends well beyond 6 feet. Visitors are encouraged to touch and interact with the piece. Boen produces only two such pieces a year. Visitors often assume the work is metal or wood. Only when they step close enough to see the stitching and texture does the truth reveal itself — and with it, a shift in perception Gregoire loves to watch unfold.
Across the halls, a spectrum of artists reveals the gallery’s refusal to be boxed in. There is the globally celebrated Ashley Collins, whose rise from homelessness to the most collected female Western artist in the world has become legend. There is Colombian sculptor Federico Uribe, California-born, Texas-raised photographer Steve Wruble, and Amsterdam tape artist Max Zorn, whose work is built layer by layer with packing tape and a scalpel. Zorn’s piece, located in the lounge area titled “Let Them Have the Rest,” is one of a limited number of works not for sale from Ellard’s collection.
But Ellard’s philosophy isn’t just about displaying beauty — it’s about circulation. And as mentioned before, almost everything art-related outside of a few pieces like Zorn’s are up for grabs.
“Everything is for sale,” Gregoire says. “Every room, every hallway, every bathroom. And that makes us the first of our kind in the world.”
When pieces sell, the gallery refreshes itself. When they don’t, they stay until the right moment arrives.
“We only swap when things sell,” she explains. “We want each piece to hold its own space.”
Even the furnishings tell stories. The Hotel’s bar, for instance, is authentically from the 1800s, hauled in from an auction after Ellard saw a single photograph.
“Joe scrapped the entire modern bar design and said, ‘We’re bringing this one in,’” Gregoire recalls. “You can still see the patina — the life it has lived.”
There’s even an authentic pool table from the same era in the game room, refurbished enough to be used but still worn with the burns of years of cigarettes and other scars. Every element, from hand-hammered flooring meant to look trodden by horses to vintage sculptures fired in open flames in a lakeside village in Mexico, reflects Ellard’s insistence on authenticity.
“Fort Worth isn’t into the brand-new and shiny,” Gregoire says. “It’s about history you can feel.”
What ties the disparate pieces together is the gallery’s welcoming ethos. Bowie House doesn’t curate for an elite audience; it curates for Fort Worth.
“Joe created this place so that boots and suits feel the same,” Gregoire says. “It’s a hub for the city, not just a hotel.”
Local groups book tours. Private collectors stop by. And with each exhibition — especially the upcoming showcase by Zorn on Jan. 11, 2026 — the gallery attracts new audiences drawn as much by the art as by the space made famous on screen.
Ultimately, the gallery is a reflection of the city. As Gregoire puts it, standing beneath a wall dense with stories, “Art here isn’t something you look at from a distance — it’s something you live with.”
Featured Artists at Bowie House:
- Hijack
- Carly Allen Martin
- Isabell Beyel
- Joey Brock
- James Cacciatore
- Elle Caerbert
- Daniel Allen Cohen
- JD Cole
- Ashley Collins
- Stephen D’Onofrio
- Jacob Genovesi
- Veryl Goodnight
- Lisa Gordon
- Rudy Hetzer
- Abigail Faye Jackson
- Constance Jaeggi
- Andrey Kozakov
- Leon Loughridge
- Jacob Lovett
- Bruce R. MacDonald
- Ingrid Dee Magidson
- Kristin Moore
- Karen Navarro
- Jarrod Oram
- Joel Ostlind
- Paula S. Kraemer
- Erik Skoldberg
- Anton Smit
- J.M. Stubbs
- Federico Uribe
- Caroline Vaughn Jarosz
- Steve Wrubel
- David Yarrow
- Max Zorn