Buildings that are a century or more old are rare in Los Angeles, but this youth-obsessed city does have a wealth of architectural treasures built in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. The midcentury period is celebrated at the Avalon Hotel in Beverly Hills, which features vintage furnishings and an hourglass-shaped pool. And true to L.A. style, the buildings of the Avalon were reinvented from a hotel that was featured in episodes of “I Love Lucy,” as well as from a pair of 1949 apartment buildings.
Washington, D.C.’s Hotel Monaco is located in a national historic landmark, the city’s former General Post Office (also known as the Tariff Building), which was also the first all-marble structure in the nation’s capital. Designed by Robert Mills, architect of the Washington Monument, the structure was completed in 1842; Thomas Walter, the architect of the United States Capitol, designed the extension on the hotel’s north façade.
The Jules Undersea Lodge occupies a former research lab in the waters off of Key Largo, Fla. Although the lodge is 21 feet under water, it includes such amenities as air conditioning, hot showers, a DVD player and TV, as well as a fully stocked galley with a refrigerator and microwave. While the Jules Undersea Lodge is a favorite with the scuba set and you have to snorkel to the entrance, you don’t have to be a certified diver to stay there. Swimming is, of course, required; your laptop is not.
Houston’s Hotel Icon, which opened in 2004, occupies the historic Union Bank Building, which was one of the earliest steel-and-concrete skyscrapers in the U.S. The keystones depicting Hermes, the Greek god of trade and commerce, proclaim the building’s past, but the 135 luxurious guest rooms and suites mark this as a boutique hotel that means business.
The 100-year-old building that’s now the Iron Horse Hotel in Milwaukee was once a factory and warehouse, and was used as a cold storage facility until 2005. But today, it hosts one of the hottest social scenes in Milwaukee. The hotel’s name refers not only to its proximity to a historic railway, but also to its location near the new Harley-Davidson Museum, in the city where the motorcycle company is based.
The Emily Morgan Hotel in San Antonio is located in the Medical Arts Building, a historic 1920s landmark in the Alamo City; its 13-story tower still features terra cotta gargoyles depicting figures with toothaches and other ailments. Today, the only therapy that this luxury AAA four-diamond hotel offers is through its elegantly appointed rooms, well-stocked library and outdoor pool and hot tub.
The W Minneapolis – The Foshay occupies a building that’s also on the National Register of Historic Places. The iconic 447-foot art deco structure was built in 1929 by local developer Wilbur B. Foshay to resemble the Washington Monument; it tapers from 7,000 square feet at its base to 3,800 square feet at the top. The refurbished hotel opened in 2008, with many of the building's original design elements preserved, including Italian marble, terrazzo floors and ornamental brass, bronze and nickel accents.
The Nines in Portland, Ore., is a new luxury hotel that occupies the top nine floors of the 15-story former Meier & Frank department store, which was built in 1908 and closed in 2006. The building, on the National Register of Historic Places, was remodeled using green materials; it’s expected to achieve LEED Silver certification. And if the hotel’s history inspires you to shop, a Macy’s department store sits at ground level.
New York’s Jane Hotel is located in a 1908 building designed by William A. Boring, the architect of Ellis Island’s immigrant station, and was used in 1912 to lodge the survivors of the Titanic. The Jane’s 150 Standard Cabin and 50 Captain’s Cabin rooms mimic those found on a ship; they’re tight on space, and guests share a communal bathroom. But with rooms starting at $99/night, it’s one of the best hotel bargains in Manhattan.
Reduce, reuse, recycle is a mantra for the green-minded who want to do their part in preserving the environment. For years, hotels have been asking their guests to reuse towels and sheets to reduce the amount of water and energy they consume. But a few new hotels embody the three R’s in a broader way: The buildings they occupy were each used for an entirely different purpose in a past life.For more than a century, people avoided checking into the building that’s now occupied by the Liberty Hotel in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston. That’s because, up until 1990, it was the Charles Street jail, a structure that once housed Malcolm X and notorious anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. Today, hip Bostonians wait in line to get into the Liberty’s Alibi bar and the hot restaurant The Clink. And the hotel retains vestiges of its former life, in the form of an airy atrium that was once the jail’s rotunda.
