Art Hotels — 6

Sextantio Le Grotte della Civita is a hotel spread through cave dwellings in the Sassi district of Matera. Rooms sit in separate caves along the rock face, and arrival is handled in a small room rather than at a desk.

The caves were homes for centuries, then emptied and left. Work here removed later additions and kept the cut stone, the plaster and the marks of former use, so a room reads as a shelter that was adapted rather than one that was decorated.

The Civita is the oldest part of Matera, and the hotel looks across the ravine to the caves on the far side. Streets around it are stairs and stone lanes rather than roads, and cars stop well above.

Spring and autumn suit the walking the town demands. Summer days are hot and the stone holds the heat, while winter brings quiet streets and long evenings spent inside the caves.

Rooms are lit by candles and daylight, so light levels stay low. Floors and steps are uneven stone, and reaching the entrance means walking down and then up again with luggage.

Ett Hem is a small hotel in Stockholm arranged as a private home. Guests use a kitchen, a library and a garden room, and staff work among them instead of standing behind a counter.

The house was built as a townhouse in the early twentieth century and keeps its domestic plan: separate rooms, fireplaces and a conservatory on the garden side. Furniture is a mix of periods rather than a single scheme, and nothing is set out purely for display.

It stands on a residential street in Lärkstaden, north of the city centre, among brick houses of the same period. The main museums and the water are a walk or a short ride away.

Long summer light makes the garden usable late into the evening. In winter the interior does the work, with fires lit and short days spent between the library and the kitchen.

The house is small, so rooms differ in size and shape and some are reached by stairs. Meals come out of the kitchen at set times rather than from a long menu.

Katamama is a hotel in Seminyak with suites rather than standard rooms, arranged around courtyards and a pool. Almost everything inside, from the tiles to the textiles, was made for this building.

The structure uses around one and a half million bricks pressed by hand and laid so the surface stays irregular. Furniture, ceramics and fabrics come from Indonesian workshops, and the architecture follows local building practice instead of a resort template.

It stands a short walk from Seminyak beach, set back behind the main road, with shops and restaurants close by. The sea is reached on foot in a few minutes through a side lane.

The dry months from April to October bring steadier weather. The wet season is warm and green with heavy afternoon rain, and the area is quieter between the two holiday peaks.

Seminyak traffic is slow, and short distances can take a long time by car. The building has stairs, open corridors and courtyards, so the weather is part of moving around it.

Downtown México is a hotel inside a palace in the historic centre of Mexico City. Rooms sit above a ground floor of shops and workshops, and a bar and pool occupy the roof.

The palace dates from the seventeenth century and keeps its stone arcades, thick walls and two internal courtyards. The conversion left old surfaces worn and visible, then set plain modern fittings against them instead of imitating the earlier work.

The building stands a few streets from the Zócalo, among government buildings, churches and old shopfronts. Much of the district is closed to traffic, so the surroundings are covered on foot.

The dry months from November to April are mild and clear. Summer afternoons bring rain that ends the day early, and the centre is at its busiest around national holidays.

The historic centre is loud until late, and rooms facing the street hear it. The city sits above two thousand metres, so the first day can leave arrivals short of breath.

Hotel Sanders is a hotel in central Copenhagen with a small bar, a library and a covered veranda. Rooms are modest in size, and the shared rooms are where guests spend their time.

The building is a nineteenth-century block a street behind the Royal Theatre. Inside, the conversion used rattan, timber and heavy fabric to make the rooms read as parts of a house, and a veranda was added under glass at the back.

It stands a few minutes from Kongens Nytorv and the canal at Nyhavn, in a district of theatres, restaurants and shops. Most of the city centre is within a walk.

Late spring and summer bring long daylight and outdoor tables across the city. Autumn and winter turn the veranda and the library into the reason to stay indoors after dark.

Rooms in the older part of the building are compact, and some face a narrow street. The area is central, so evening noise from the restaurants carries into the front rooms.

The Line LA is a hotel in Koreatown with rooms behind full-height glass, a pool deck and restaurants at ground level. Public rooms take up much of the lower floors of the building.

The block went up in the nineteen sixties as a concrete slab tower. The conversion stripped the rooms back to bare structure and left the concrete exposed, added a glasshouse restaurant at the base and kept the original window walls on every floor.

It stands on Wilshire Boulevard in Koreatown, on a metro line, with restaurants open late in every direction. Downtown lies to the east and Hollywood to the north, both a short ride away.

Autumn and spring are dry and mild, and the light is clearest then. Summer runs hot and hazy, while winter brings occasional rain and the sharpest views toward the hills.

The glass walls face traffic on a wide boulevard, and the district stays busy at night. Distances in Los Angeles are long, so a car or the metro is part of every day.