Places to stay Explore our selections for historic.
Casa Polanco
HotelNorth America, Mexico
From $600
Casa Polanco is a 19-room boutique hotel in Mexico City’s Polanco district, set directly across from Parque Lincoln and a short walk from Avenida Presidente Masaryk and the city’s best restaurants. It joins a restored 1940s Neocolonial mansion, recognized by Mexico’s National Institute of Fine Arts, with a contemporary building designed by architect Claudio Gantous. Rooms feature walnut floors, custom furniture and, in many cases, balconies over the park or the inner courtyard. Rates include breakfast at La Veranda, a guests-only restaurant, as well as daily afternoon tea and an honor bar in the library, and the hotel also has a spa, a fitness room and e-bikes for getting around.
Capella Sydney
HotelOceania, Australia
From $750
Capella Sydney occupies the former Department of Education building, an Edwardian Baroque sandstone landmark designed by government architect George McRae in 1912, a short walk from Circular Quay and the Sydney Opera House. After a seven-year restoration by Make Architects and BAR Studio, a modern glass extension now crowns the historic facade, and the 192 rooms and suites pair heritage details with contemporary comfort. Works by Australian artists, including Judy Watson, fill the public spaces, and a cultural program covers Aboriginal history, art and the harbor. On level six, the Auriga Spa and a 20-meter indoor pool occupy the old gallery, while Brasserie 1930 and the ground-floor Living Room set the pace downstairs.
Albergo Diffuso Ca’ Spiga
HotelEurope, Italy
From $172
Ca’ Spiga is a small albergo diffuso in Laglio, on the western shore of Lake Como, set within the old stone hamlet of Torriggia Alta, around 200 meters above the water and twenty minutes by car from Como. Its eight rooms are spread across restored village houses, with tiled floors, wooden furnishings and, in many cases, balconies facing the lake. There is no restaurant, but breakfast is a highlight, a generous spread of local products served on a panoramic terrace, and the hosts are known for welcoming guests like old friends. One of the lake’s few beaches, Riva del Tenciu, is a two-minute walk away, and Villa del Balbianello and Bellagio are within easy reach.
La Bionda
HotelEurope, Spain
From $180
La Bionda is an eight-room boutique hotel in a 17th-century building in the center of Begur, a medieval hilltop village on the Costa Brava, about an hour and a half from Barcelona. Opened in 2020 by Carla Lloveras, it is named after her great-great-grandmother, known as “la rossa,” the first woman in the family to run a business. Renovated by Quintana Partners, the interiors are rich in color and detail, and each room is named after a remarkable woman who stayed here in the early 1900s. Guests share an honesty bar, a courtyard with a greenhouse where breakfast is served and a rooftop, with the church square, local restaurants and the coves of the Costa Brava all close by.
Shila
HotelEurope, Greece
From $250
Shila occupies a neoclassical mansion from the late 1920s on Mantzarou Street, a quiet pedestrian lane in Kolonaki, Athens’ most cultured neighborhood, a short walk from the Benaki and Cycladic Art museums. The original terrazzo floors, high ceilings, wrought iron and marble details have been kept, and the house is imagined as the world of a fictional hostess named Shila. Its six suites each have their own character, from 1960s-inspired rooms with fine art photography to bohemian suites under the roof, all furnished with vintage pieces and works by Greek artists. There is a garden courtyard, a library that doubles as a gallery, breakfast baskets of Greek specialties delivered to your suite, and a roof terrace lined with banana trees.
Hotel Palazzo Guadagni
HotelEurope, Italy
From $262
Hotel Palazzo Guadagni occupies the upper floors of a palazzo built in the early 16th century by architect Il Cronaca, on Piazza Santo Spirito in Florence’s Oltrarno, a few minutes’ walk from Palazzo Pitti and the Ponte Vecchio. Its loggia was the first in Renaissance Florence to face Brunelleschi’s Basilica of Santo Spirito, and has hosted artists and scholars since the building became a guesthouse in 1912. The 15 rooms are individually furnished, some with frescoed ceilings, antique fireplaces or views of the Duomo and Palazzo Vecchio. Today the loggia is a rooftop bar serving Tuscan wines at sunset, above one of the city’s most lived-in neighborhoods, known for its artisans and antique shops.
Hotel Chelsea
HotelNorth America, United States
From $500
Hotel Chelsea rose on West 23rd Street in 1884 as a co-op for artists, a twelve-story red-brick Victorian with cast-iron balconies that was briefly the tallest building in New York. Over the following century it became home to writers, painters and musicians, from Dylan Thomas to Patti Smith, some of whom paid their rent in artworks. After an eleven-year restoration it reopened in 2022 with 125 rooms and 30 suites, keeping its art collection, while long-term residents still live among the guests. El Quijote, the city’s oldest Spanish restaurant, opened here in 1930 and still has its Don Quixote murals, joined by Café Chelsea, the hotel’s first official Lobby Bar and a spa.
The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel
HotelNorth America, United States
From $1,024
The Carlyle has occupied its Art Deco tower at Madison Avenue and East 76th Street since 1930, a block from Central Park on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Its 190 rooms and suites lean residential, larger than most of the city’s historic hotels, with some suites keeping grand pianos. Bemelmans Bar holds the only public commission by Ludwig Bemelmans, creator of the Madeline books, whose 1947 murals show Central Park through the seasons, and live jazz plays every night. Café Carlyle, the hotel’s cabaret and supper club, is decorated with murals by Marcel Vertès, while Dowling’s serves classic New York dishes and the Valmont Spa offers treatments upstairs.
Hotel Neri – Relais & Châteaux
HotelEurope, Spain
From $458
Hotel Neri sits on Plaça Sant Felip Neri, a small, secluded square in the heart of Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, a short walk from the cathedral and La Rambla. The building joins a 12th-century medieval palace with an 18th-century Gothic mansion, and the restoration keeps exposed stone, timber beams and arches alongside Mediterranean interiors in deep, warm tones. It is the only Relais & Châteaux hotel in Barcelona, with an intimate number of rooms and suites, a restaurant set beneath stone vaults and a rooftop terrace with a plunge pool overlooking the old city’s rooftops. Pets are welcome.
