Joan Rattner Heilman
Joan Rattner Heilman, an inveterate traveler and seasoned journalist based in Mamaroneck, New York, is author of more than a dozen books. She specializes in 50-plus travel.
Some of the country’s most elegant hotels started out as something else. These luxury lodgings now offer modern conveniences while retaining evidence of their former lives and storied pasts.
All of the following are included in the National Trust for Historic Preservation…
Information: 615-726-1001, www.UnionStationHotelNashville.com. Room rates are $189 to $399 (double occupancy) per night.
Taking up an entire block of Savannah’s Landmark district, its five floors are wrapped around a central atrium and surrounded by a system of alleys, walks and bridges known as Factor’s Walk, where prosperous cotton merchants once did their trading. Many of its 86 rooms have wrought-iron balconies overlooking the city’s restored riverfront, including the picturesque River Walk that is lined with shops, restaurants and taverns.
Information: 800-253-4229, www.RiverStreetInn.com. $139 to $279 per night.
Once upon a time, the Boston Strangler was on the “guest list” of the notorious Charles Street Jail in Boston. Now law-abiding citizens can do time here, too, because the fearsome lockdown has been converted into the trendy Liberty Hotel. The original iron catwalks have become three stories of balconies around the jail’s soaring 90-foot atrium that now is the hotel’s lobby. An old cell block with barred iron doors and a bluestone floor has been incorporated into a bar and restaurant called CLINK, one of Boston’s top hot spots. Another bar, Alibi, occupies space in the jail’s old “drunk tank.” Most of the 298 guest rooms and suites are located in a new 16-story tower, but a few, modernized and commodious, remain in the original jail area with traces of its true prison past intact.
Information: 617-224-4000, www.LibertyHotel.com. Starting at $349 (double occupancy) per night.
Information: 415-800-7356, www.InnAtThePresidio.com. $195 to $350 (double occupancy) per night, including continental breakfast.
Information: 877-342-0742, www.QueenMary.com. $99 to $489 (double occupancy), depending on the class of stateroom.