Willy Loman slept here: Extended-stay hotels were homes for working-class types, but the Bond Hotel in Hartford was a high-end hotspot.

Every city has that "it" spot, where high society once gathered back in the day, where the architecture itself once exuded a lofty and uncontrived aura of lavish living. In Hartford, Conn., some 80 years ago, it was the 12-story Bond Hotel: High-flying celebrities like Betty Grable and captains of industry who had occasion to breeze through the central Connecticut city stayed here.

That was a long time ago, before another Hartford hotel, the Statler, came into favor and the stately Bond became a nursing school in the 1960s. But now this 1921 Hartford edifice has returned to its former purpose—with a few alterations.

After a four-year conversion, Homewood Suites, a so-called "extended-stay" hotel chain under the Hilton umbrella, opened in November. Now, instead of black tie in the Bond's regal lobby, it's the sensible suit.

The first extended-stay brand was the Residence Inn, which offered suites with kitchen in various locations around the country at weekly rates, a second home for business travelers. Now most every major hotel brands have an extended-stay offering—Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott—and not all of them are in suburban office parks or along highway interstates, beside Jiffy Lubes or Long John Silvers.

Why are extended-stay hotels rehabbing these older urban structures in addition to building new ones in outlying areas? The strategy is apparently market driven: Travelers want to be downtown.

"Interest and growth in downtown areas have risen dramatically over the past several years," says Rebecca Wyatt, senior vice president of brand management at Homewood Suites By Hilton. She points out that a flexible building prototype permits such unique projects. "Converting historic buildings into Homewood Suites allows us to enter into limited space in high-traffic urban areas without tearing down an existing building and building from scratch," she says.

Today there is a growing number of extended stay hotels within city limits—and inside older buildings that, given their previous use, possess greater sense of place and unique character. Out your window isn't a strip mall, but perhaps a city park. The lobby isn't quite so boxy and cliché. The decor isn't quite as bland, but has an authentic sense of place.

Art deco elevator (Memphis Residence Inn/Marriott)

In Savannah, the 1871 Staybridge Suites was an Anheuser-Busch factory, a Heinz food factory, and a welding shop until it opened as an extended-stay hotel in April 2006. The lobby still has its original hardwood floors and floor-to-ceiling brick walls, and original wood beams line the exercise room. Last month, a Renaissance revival building in Nashville, Tenn., opened as a Homewood, complete with Tennessee pink marble and two stained-glass domes on the first and sixth floors of the former Methodist Hospital Doctors' Building. Memphis' 1930s 13-story art deco hotel is now a Residence Inn. Marriott retained the metal-faced art deco elevator doors and the original grey-and-white-striped marble columns on the ground floor.

"We don't want to ruin the look, feel, or the historic value of the building," says Robert Radomski, vice president of brand management for Staybridge's parent company, International Hotel Group. "Staybridge Suites is an architecturally defined product, which makes these adaptive-reuse projects quite a challenge. But we're finding more and more interest in them. Guests get a modern room experience, but the public spaces are more historic. In downtown areas, there's not a lot of empty land available, but the five-mile radius around these sites, which we look very closely at, often has support services like restaurants, transportation, and recreational activities. That makes them very attractive, and it's also sometimes cheaper than starting from scratch."

The old Bond

Fading black-and-white photographs of Hartford's Bond Hotel show its ballroom: a long corridor used as a dining room, a smooth, wood-floored dance room flanked by archways, wrought-iron chandeliers and gray damask Louis XIV drapes. An old brochure touts "genuine Moroccan leather" chairs and a "semi-circular chromium bar." It housed the "most modern beauty parlor in Hartford" and a seven-chair barber shop.

Today, hints of the hotel's former glory remain. There's no Moroccan leather, but the original brass mail slot and chute that ran from floor to floor is still visible. No bar, but framed silver spoons from the original hotel are on display in the lobby next to old keys, postcards, and hotel advertisements. The high ceilings? They've been filled in everywhere except in the last remaining banquet hall on the ground floor. However, the top floor, which a catering company owns, retains it opulence as a site for weddings and other engagements—a 5,000-square-foot-room with 30-foot ceilings and Palladian windows. Meanwhile, rather than looking out onto a chain restaurant on a nondescript street, visitors can secure rooms with a view of 37-acre Bushnell Park and the gold-painted capitol dome in the very center of the city.

While these renovations often remove historic elements, hotel chains try to strike a balance, says Radomski. "We want to uphold and respect the history of these buildings as much as we want to incorporate our brand standards."

Christopher Percy Collier is an award-winning journalist who writes and photographs for The New York Times, National Geographic Adventure, and Men's Journal.

Sign up for our free weekly e-newsletter >>

Recent Stories