Art Hotels
These are older city houses — apartment blocks, merchant residences, a palace — that were converted to guest use rather than built for it. What matters in each is what survived the conversion: a stair, a tiled hall, a moulded ceiling, a vaulted room, and what the street still shows of the original front.
Hotel Rochechouart
55 Boulevard de Rochechouart, ninth arrondissement, Paris, France
The house was put up in the early years of the last century on the Boulevard de Rochechouart, at the foot of the Montmartre slope in the ninth arrondissement. It was built for guest use from the start, with a wide entrance hall, a stair carrying an iron balustrade, and floors of patterned tile. The frontage follows the curve of the boulevard.
The rebuilding kept the hall, the stair and much of the original tiling, and set new work around them: a brasserie at street level, a bar on the uppermost floor, and rooms fitted out in colours drawn from the period of the house. Later partitions were taken out where they had cut across the original plan.
Guests reach the hall, the brasserie and the rooftop bar, and the last of these looks north over the roofs towards the basilica. From the pavement the tiled entrance and the shopfront glazing are visible through the day, and the upper storeys keep their stone balconies.
- Where Paris, France
- Kind Converted apartment house
- Seen August 2026
Hotel Praktik Rambla
Rambla de Catalunya, Eixample, Barcelona, Spain
This is a family house of the early twentieth century on the Rambla de Catalunya, inside the Eixample grid laid out by Cerdà. The building keeps the tall ceilings, mosaic floors and moulded plaster of that period, together with a stair hall behind the street door. Balconies run along the front at each of the main levels and carry their original ironwork.
When the house was turned over to guest use the decorative floors and ceilings were left alone, and the new fittings — beds, joinery, bathrooms — were made plain so that they read as additions rather than as period work. A patio at the back was cleared and planted, and the reception was set in the old hall.
The hall, the patio terrace and a small breakfast room are open to guests. From the street the original door, the tiled entrance and the balcony ironwork can be seen, while the terrace is hidden inside the block. Trees line the boulevard in front of the house.
- Where Barcelona, Spain
- Kind Converted family house
- Seen August 2026
Hotel Danmark
Vester Voldgade, by Rådhuspladsen, Copenhagen, Denmark
The house stands on Vester Voldgade, a short walk from the town hall square, along the line of the old city rampart that the street replaced. It is a masonry building of the later nineteenth century, with a shopfront at the base and plain rendered storeys above it, and it has been in guest use for a long stretch of its life.
The most recent work went through the interiors rather than the shell: rooms were re-planned, a bar and a small dining room were put in at street level, and a terrace was opened on the roof. The windows and the street frontage were left as they stood, so the change is not visible from outside.
Guests use the ground-floor bar, the breakfast room and the terrace above, which looks across to the town hall tower. From the street the building reads as one of the row, with only the doorway to mark it, and the bar windows face the pavement.
- Where Copenhagen, Denmark
- Kind Converted town building
- Seen August 2026
Chateau Royal Berlin
Französische Straße, Mitte, Berlin, Germany
Two neighbouring buildings in Mitte were joined to make this house, on Französische Straße in the quarter behind the Gendarmenmarkt. The older of the pair began as a residential and commercial block of the nineteenth century; the second was added later along the same street. Their floor levels did not line up, and the join can still be read in the plan.
The conversion held on to the street fronts and the stair cores and cut new openings between the two structures. Rooms were fitted with joinery and furniture in a heavy manner drawn from the early twentieth century, and a restaurant and a bar were placed at ground level facing the street.
The restaurant, the bar and the lobby are open to guests, and the corridors carry a hung collection of drawings and photographs. From the pavement the two frontages can be read as separate houses despite the single entrance, and their cornice lines do not meet.
- Where Berlin, Germany
- Kind Two joined historic houses
- Seen August 2026
Hotel Franq
Kipdorp, old town, Antwerp, Belgium
Two eighteenth-century town houses on Kipdorp, in the old centre of Antwerp, were put together to make this hotel. They were built as private residences, with tall windows to the street and a courtyard behind, and they served other uses before the conversion began. The cathedral and the main square lie a few streets to the west of the door.
Work on the buildings held on to the panelling, the stair and the moulded ceilings of the principal rooms, and inserted bathrooms and services into the depth of the plan where nothing original survived. A restaurant was placed in the ground-floor rooms, and the courtyard was opened as a terrace.
The restaurant, the courtyard terrace and the panelled sitting rooms are open to guests. Seen from Kipdorp the pair reads as a single classical frontage, with the entrance set under a stone surround, and the upper windows keep their small panes.
- Where Antwerp, Belgium
- Kind Converted eighteenth-century houses
- Seen August 2026
The Lumiares
Rua do Diário de Notícias, Bairro Alto, Lisbon, Portugal
The Lumiares occupies an eighteenth-century palace in the Bairro Alto, on a narrow street running down the hill above the river. The building was raised after the earthquake of 1755, in the plain Pombaline manner, with thick masonry walls and a timber frame set inside them. It stood empty for years before the conversion was begun.
The rebuilding left the shell and the vaulted lower rooms in place and put apartments with small kitchens into the upper floors. A restaurant was added at the head of the house, reached by a lift cut down through the depth of the building. Original stonework was left uncovered wherever it had survived.
Guests use the roof terrace, the lower hall and the vaulted rooms beneath it. From the street the palace is hard to pick out: the front is narrow and plain, and only the doorway and a stone plaque mark the entrance to the house.
- Where Lisbon, Portugal
- Kind Converted eighteenth-century palace
- Seen August 2026
An independent record, compiled from published material about the buildings. Restoration work continues in houses of this age, and rooms open to guests one year may be closed the next. No connection exists between this site and any hotel named here; nothing is sold and nothing is reserved. Check with the house.
