Jane and Greg Hills were visiting New York City when they grabbed a drink in the lobby bar of the Dream Downtown, a boutique hotel in Chelsea. As the full room pulsed with music and guests, the couple had an epiphany: Dream should run their new hotel in Durham, N.C.

“We had been talking to all the major brands, but we wanted someone innovative, creative and entrepreneurial,” Ms. Hills said of Dream, a relatively small company that operates 16 hotels. “The banks wanted us to go with someone more well known, but Dream was the right match for us.”

The result is Unscripted Durham, a hotel that will have its soft opening this month and the official opening in July in the center of a revitalizing downtown. With its rooftop pool and five restaurants on the premises — a considerable number given that there are just 74 rooms — it is the latest in a wave of new boutique hotels in the nation’s smaller cities.