The traditional American outdoor-corridor motel is to the hospitality industry what an old dive is to the bar industry.
There’s nothing not to love about a good dive bar: the dark and gloom, the cheap whiskey and bottled beer, the dartboard and the jukebox. There used to be one on every street corner and everyone had their favorite. But the bar scene appears to be going through a revolution and these cheap, old bars are going away, and instead are being replaced with modern establishments that are designed to look like cheap, old dive bars.
While some of these new drinking holes may be a bit pretentious, I like the new trend that offers a nod to the old speakeasy. The good ones are tended by alert, crafty, professional bartenders who know enough about spirits to craft their own handmade drinks. You can’t find a Budweiser in the cooler but there are 101 different microbrews to swig.
A new breed of successful hotels are drawing a similar parallel—taking something old and making it new again by adding design elements and people who are passionate about the locale and the spirit of hospitality. The industry term is “adaptive reuse” and, especially in today’s financial landscape, it makes a lot of investment sense. But beyond the replacement-cost calculations and tax advantages, adaptive-reuse projects are appealing because they offer something outside of a traditional hotel box; they offer an experience—a story. Like a good bar, they offer a comfortable setting where customers can enjoy the moment.
Here are five unique hotel projects that caught my eye because of their sense of location, design or willingness to step outside of the traditional hotel box:
1. The Langham, Boston
The Boston Langham is housed in a building built in 1922 that first served as the Federal Reserve Bank, established by President Woodrow Wilson. Its design features a granite exterior and painted dome ceiling. The first floor of the 318-room hotel has long, skinny windows, a reminder of its heritage as a bank, and the vault is now used as a pastry kitchen.
2. The Foundation Hotel, Detroit
A development group led by 21 Century Holdings has purchased the historic Detroit Fire Department headquarters for $1.3 million and is proposing a 75- to 80-room hotel with a bar and restaurant on the first floor. The building will undergo a $23-million renovation and will retain the firehouse look on the ground floor, keeping the two poles in the main room. It will be managed by the Aparium Hotel Group, which also manages the Iron Horse Hotel in Milwaukee and the Hotel Covington near Cincinnati. The Foundation Hotel is a working name.
3. The Gladstone Hotel, Toronto
According to its website, The Gladstone in Toronto “fosters a micro economy” by allowing local artists to perform and exhibit their work. In turn, it has become a place where artists and neighborhood patrons come just to hang out. Managed by Sequel Hotels and Resorts, the hotel embraces creativity and invites innovation. For example, using the original 19th century Victorian architecture, local Canadian artists redesigned the Gladstone’s 37 rooms in 2008 into alternative works of art. Each room represents a different artist’s vision and no two rooms look the same.
4. Collision Works, Detroit
A $4-million boutique hotel using reclaimed steel shipping containers is under construction in Detroit. The 36-room hotel will be made from steel cargo shipping containers that are regularly used to import goods from China but rarely go back. A lot of the prefabrication work can take place off-site and a crane will be brought in to stack the containers before they are bolted and welded. The project will include communal gathering spaces that tell stories about people in Detroit so visitors can become immersed in what's happening in the city.
5. Brewhouse Inn & Suites, Milwaukee
The recently opened Brewhouse Inn & Suites is a 90-room hotel housed in the former Pabst Brewery in downtown Milwaukee. The brewery closed its doors in 1996 after operating as a staple of downtown Milwaukee for 150 years. The complex was restored into a leadership in energy and environmental design-platinum hotel that preserves the building's history, including a five-story atrium and a stained-glass window etched with a picture of King Gambrinus, the patron saint of beer.
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