Art Hotels
In these six the open part is usually a ground floor: a pub, a café, a garden passage, a room the city books by name. Works hang on both sides of the line, which means some of what each building holds is seen by anyone who walks in and some only by people who stay. The staircase is generally where the open house stops.
Thirteen
The Fife Arms
Braemar, Scotland, United Kingdom
A village pub inside a hotel is the simplest description of what stands open here. The bar in Braemar takes people from the village and from the hill paths, and the ground-floor rooms carry a large collection of works that visitors pass without paying to see.
Walking in from the street is ordinary in a village this size, and the bar behaves like a local one rather than a hotel lounge. Which of the public rooms are available can depend on how busy the house is.
Guests keep the bedrooms and the upper corridors, which hold their own works and are not part of the route a visitor takes. The staircase is where the open house stops.
The collection sits across the line which is the unusual part. Some of it hangs where anyone can stand, and some of it hangs where only people staying will ever see it.
Write ahead if you hope to see particular rooms, as public access to them varies.
Written up · November 2028
Fourteen
Palacio Duhau – Park Hyatt Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires, Argentina
A garden between two buildings carries the open part of this address in Recoleta, along with a gallery passage that links the old palace to the newer wing. People come in for the garden and the restaurant without going near the reception.
Coming for lunch or coffee is the usual reason a stranger crosses this threshold. The passage between the buildings functions as a route and a display space at once, and it is walked by people who are not staying.
Guests are left the bedrooms in both wings, and the quieter parts of the palace above the public floor. The old building keeps its formal rooms, and not all of them are shown.
The site is two houses joined and the join is the part that is open. What is private sits at either end of it, which makes the middle of the property the most public place in it.
Ask which parts of the garden and passage are accessible when you plan to come.
Written up · November 2028
Fifteen
Casa Bonay
Barcelona, Spain
A café and cocktail bar occupy the ground floor of this building on Gran Via, and both are entered from the street. They work as neighbourhood rooms through the day, changing use between morning and evening, and most people in them are not staying upstairs.
Using the door from the pavement puts you straight into that ground floor without meeting the hotel desk. The building is a restored nineteenth-century house, and its entrance hall is shared by everyone who comes in.
Guests occupy the floors above and the rooftop, where access is generally limited to people staying. The stair from the ground floor is the point where the building narrows to its guests.
The house divides by height with the most public room at the bottom and the most private at the top, and the working parts of the hotel threaded quietly between them.
Write ahead about the rooftop, since who may use it and when is not fixed.
Written up · November 2028
Sixteen
Hotel Café Royal
London, United Kingdom
Historic rooms used as city rooms make up the open side of this building on Regent Street. The café and the grill room have long taken people from the street, and they are known in London independently of the hotel that surrounds them.
Booking a table only is the common way in, and the entrances are arranged so that visitors reach the public rooms without crossing the hotel's own circulation. Which rooms are available to non-residents can change.
Guests hold the bedrooms and the spa levels below, which are not part of what a visitor sees. Those parts sit behind lifts rather than behind a visible door.
The building carries its past on the open side and its present on the closed one. The rooms people know by name are the ones anyone can book a table in.
Ask which of the historic rooms are open to non-residents on the day you want.
Written up · November 2028
Seventeen
The Line LA
Los Angeles, United States
A greenhouse restaurant and a lobby bar form the open part of this address on Wilshire Boulevard, and the hotel describes its ground floor as a place for the neighbourhood as much as for its rooms. What is running there has changed over the years.
Driving in for dinner is normal in this part of Koreatown, and the ground floor takes that traffic. The restaurant sits in its own glazed structure, which people identify before they identify the tower behind it.
Guests keep the rooms in the tower and the lift lobbies serving them. Access to the pool deck and to some upper spaces can be limited depending on how the hotel is running.
The tower and the ground floor read as two different buildings that happen to share an address, and the glass room at street level is the one the city uses.
Confirm which restaurants and bars are operating before making the trip for one.
Written up · November 2028
Eighteen
Hotel Chelsea
New York, United States
A lobby full of works is what people come in to see here on West Twenty-Third Street, along with the bar that opens off the ground floor. Both are entered from the pavement, and the building's history brings visitors who have no room upstairs.
Stepping in off the street is possible, though how far a visitor may go depends on the day and on how busy the house is. The lobby is a working entrance for residents and guests as well as a room people look at.
Guests and residents share the floors above the ground floor, and part of the building remains long-term housing rather than hotel accommodation. That distinction is part of what the upper floors are.
The line here is unusually soft and it moves. The lobby has been more open in some periods than others, and the building has never settled into a single arrangement.
Ask before arriving whether the lobby and bar are open to visitors that day.
Written up · November 2028
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