Places that were something else
The houses gathered here began as something other than hotels, or stand only for part of the year. Some are town buildings and palaces given over to guest use; some are cut from snow each winter and lost by spring; some are compact addresses built around a single repeated berth; some are resort complexes grown out of older pavilions.
What is written here comes from the operators' own published material, from mapping, and from press reporting, checked against each other where they disagree. There are no marks out of ten, no comparisons between houses, and nothing to buy. Anything that shifts with the season or the weather is left to the house to confirm.
Ice Hotels
Structures cut from snow and lake ice, standing through the cold months and rebuilt from nothing each winter.
- Lainio Snow Village Ylläs, Finland
- Iglu-Dorf Zermatt Zermatt, Switzerland
- Snowman World Igloo Hotel Rovaniemi, Finland
- Hotel of Ice at Bâlea Lac Făgăraș Mountains, Romania
Casino Hotels
Canadian resort complexes described here as buildings: their halls, restaurants, spas and the ground they stand on.
- Montréal Casino & Hotel Montréal, Québec, Canada
- Fallsview Casino Resort Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada
- River Rock Casino Resort Richmond, British Columbia, Canada
- Casino Rama Resort Rama, Ontario, Canada
Capsule Hotels
Compact addresses built around one repeated sleeping place, and two houses that are near neighbours of the idea.
- Nadeshiko Hotel Shibuya Tokyo, Japan
- Capsule Hotel Asakusa Riverside Tokyo, Japan
- Pod DC Washington, United States
- CityHub Rotterdam Rotterdam, Netherlands
Art Hotels
City houses and palaces, some of them centuries old, converted to guest use with their older fabric left visible.
- Hotel Rochechouart Paris, France
- Hotel Praktik Rambla Barcelona, Spain
- Hotel Danmark Copenhagen, Denmark
- Chateau Royal Berlin Berlin, Germany
- Hotel Franq Antwerp, Belgium
- The Lumiares Lisbon, Portugal
How this is checked
Every house on this site was chosen because its building carries something that can be checked — a former use, a seasonal life, a plan built around one repeated element. Nothing is included on the strength of a press release alone, and anything that could not be confirmed was left out of the text altogether.
Sources are the operators' own published material, mapping and street imagery for the addresses, and reporting in the architectural and general press for the history of the fabric. Where an exact street could not be confirmed, the entry names the quarter instead. The method is set out in full on the page below.