In St. Augustine, Fla., the Casa Monica Hotel is opening in December after serving for almost 30 years as the courthouse for St. Johns County. The hotel, which resembles a medieval castle, was originally built as a hotel in 1888. In the dining room, patrons will eat at antique tables with Moroccan tile tops. Architectural styles don't always dictate the interior ambience of these reborn hotels. San Francisco's Hotel Serrano is a Spanish-revival building that was a hotel before it closed some years ago.
Guests play chess and other board games in the lobby.
Theater posters decorate the rooms. Rates vary as much as the hotels' looks. A local family funded its partial restoration last year. Since it was created 10 years ago, Historic Hotels of America has added 145 member hotels, each admitted for preserving its historic integrity, architecture and ambience. The Brown Palace Hotel , Denver was flooded with applications for housekeepers from young girls before the Beatles visited in 1964.