Whether you want to spend your next vacation on America’s West Coast or in East Asia, these five new hotels offer more than a place to sleep. Be it a post office transformed into a boutique hotel in Bend, Ore., or a Meiji-era prison reimagined as a luxury hotel in Japan, these renovated and repurposed buildings offer glimpses into the past, all the while encouraging you to enjoy their cities as they exist today.
Bend, Ore.
In the early 1930s, this 23-room-and-suite boutique hotel was a United States post office — and those words are still written in gold leaf across its facade. In fact, from the outside the building still looks as if you ought to walk in carrying letters, not luggage.
Inside, however, is another story. While original features like the lobby’s marble floors and staircase have been preserved, you’ll now find a bar named Minnie’s beneath the two-story windows. Named for Minnie Westman, a late-19th-century horse-riding, revolver-toting Oregon mail carrier, the bar serves cocktails with names inspired by her mail route, like the Smoking Revolver, and by the building’s previous life. Nearby, a cozy parlor with couches and an Art Deco-inspired fireplace invites you to nurse a drink or indulge in a bite, like a tater tot waffle with Pacific Northwest lox, crème fraîche, capers and dill.
The building’s — and by extension, the city’s — history comes alive through displayed artifacts, including nearly 100 postcards mailed from 1933 to 1983 (each with a Bend postmark), as well as historical post office boxes.
Some guest rooms even occupy the same locations as the building’s old offices, including the Postmaster Suite and the Mailroom Suite. The rooms are serene and, in many cases, airy: There are two-story loft suites with 16-foot ceilings, as well as rooms and suites with patios and fire pits. Outside, a heated soaking pool and a courtyard with communal fire pits await. Prices from $399 a night.
Pittsburgh
Designed more than 100 years ago for Henry Phipps, the former business partner of the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, the Fulton Building has just emerged from a multimillion-dollar restoration and is now home to the 300-room-and-suite Atterbury. The hotel is named for the building’s architect, Grosvenor Atterbury, known for designing the community of Forest Hills Gardens in Queens with Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. Many of the rooms, some with terraces, have views of the Allegheny River and some of Pittsburgh’s bridges.
The rotunda has been restored, and twice a day music-and-light presentations about the city take place beneath it. Throughout the hotel, which is part of the Autograph Collection, you’ll see art inspired by Mr. Atterbury and his wife, collages that explore the history of the building and Pittsburgh, and murals by local artists.
Wander over to the Drafting Room, a nod to an architect’s work space, for hearty fare like short-rib pierogies and braised oxtail. Accompany your meal with a cocktail like Where There’s Smoke (Maker’s Mark bourbon, house-smoked Averna, orange bitters). For weekend brunch, plates include croque-madame and lump-crab omelets.
The hotel’s location — downtown near Market Square, Allegheny Riverfront Park, the Andy Warhol Museum and the PNC Park baseball stadium — makes it a breeze to explore. Prices start from $269 a night. Check the website for promotions.
Nara, Japan
The words vacation and prison generally don’t go hand in hand, but thanks to Hoshino Resorts, the Japanese hospitality brand, they do now. After about a seven-year restoration, the redbrick Meiji-era Nara Prison has been transformed into a striking 48-room, all-suite luxury hotel. Created from former cell blocks, the suites have original features like hand-laid brickwork, which marries well with the warm woods and steel pillars added during the renovation. The result is a hotel with architecturally thoughtful spaces that recall a time when Japan was swiftly modernizing, showing visitors another side of an ancient city.
A pathway connects the hotel to the Nara Prison Museum by Hoshino Resorts, which explores ideas about freedom as well as the prison itself. Completed in 1908, the prison is a nationally designated Important Cultural Property, and an example of the system created by the architect John Haviland, in which cell wings radiate from a central guard station. Guests have free entry to the museum, including access to certain areas in off hours.
Back at the hotel, meals are far from prison fare. The Meiji-style breakfast, for example, includes a Scotch egg with Worcestershire sauce, crab-cream croquettes and fried shrimp. Dinner might include braised sole with Albert sauce. Prices from 147,000 yen per night (includes tax and service charge), or about $900.
Seattle
A brick building that was originally an early-1900s warehouse designed for Albert Hambach, a steam and plumbing supplies dealer, is now a plant-filled hotel with a sprawling rooftop bar in the Pioneer Square neighborhood. Designed by the Miller Hull Partnership, Populus Seattle — the second hotel from Populus Hotels, a collection of carbon positive properties — kept and repurposed materials like brick and hefty Douglas fir beams. At the same time, it removed things that had been added later — like elevators installed in the 1970s — in order to open a skylight from which sun spills down from the roof to the lobby. The building’s industrial history carries through to its 120 accommodations, which have exposed brick and exposed wood beams.
Plants and trees abound, especially in the lobby, where tropical plants line the staircase, and on the rooftop, which is enlivened with native prairie plants. The roof is also where you’ll discover Firn, a bar with views of the skyline and waterfront. Shareable plates might include baked Camembert, oysters on the half shell and chilled prawns. The hotel’s restaurant, Salt Harvest, has menus inspired by the Pacific Northwest, including live-fire dishes like king salmon and duck breast.
Populus Seattle is in the RailSpur area, named for the railways that passed through there. Nowadays, you can check out shops and restaurants in its historical warehouse buildings. Prices from $359 a night. For every night you stay, the hotel will plant a tree as part of it’s One Night, One Tree program.
Formerly a 1960s motor lodge, this 49-room-and-suite hotel is in a restored adobe-style building and is named for a venerable willow tree on the property. The rooms are warm and relaxed, with terra-cotta walls, earthy colors and local art. Depending on your room, you might have a fireplace, patio, terrace or outdoor fire pit. Bath amenities are from Aesop.
The hotel, near the Harwood Museum of Art and Taos Plaza with its shops and galleries, offers on-site activities such as live music and artist talks. You can book a guided e-bike tour and other excursions through the hotel, hike on nearby trails or take a dip in the pool.
Hotel Willa is from the hospitality brand Casetta, which focuses on boutique properties, especially the repurposing of what it considers to be architecturally significant buildings. Grab a bite at the hotel’s restaurant, Juliette, where weekend brunch might include chilaquiles or a smothered burrito. The dinner menu ranges from speck and strawberry gazpacho to filling fare like a burger or pork belly. Prices start from $200 a night.
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