Popularity brings challenges. For the owners of Hotel Turkey in the town by the same name, the challenges have inspired some cool, kitschy solutions.

Tina and Pat Carson and their partner, Carley du Menil, cultivated a live music scene so popular that music pilgrims flock to this tiny Panhandle town from across the country. Turkey was used to crowds showing up for their annual Bob Wills Day, a music festival in tribute to its hometown hero, but the Hotel Turkey’s regular back patio weekend shows have planted this wee burg firmly on the map of year-round music destinations.

In 2021, the trio brought in five 400-square-foot shipping containers for music nomads to call home. Although the containers arrived in Turkey as empty boxes, the Carsons transformed them into comfy hide-aways with a kitchen, a primary bedroom tucked behind a sliding pocket door, and a pull-out couch for the kids. Tina, a designer, lined the bare metal walls with wood planks from repurposed pallets and covered the ceilings with tin reclaimed from dilapidated local buildings or friends’ barns. The colorful, retro aesthetic of the 14 rooms in the original hotel threads throughout the containers with the tasteful placement of velvet couches and striped Mexican rugs and serapes. And of course, there is a record player and Bob Wills vinyl in every container, as well as selections from Willie, ZZ Top, and other Texas greats. Because, as du Menil says, “Music is at the heart of everything we do at the hotel.”