ALTSTADT VIENNA HOTEL

Description:

• Otto Wiesenthal, a noted connoisseur of modern art, converted a century-old private home into this charming and stylish hotel in the mid-1990s. Wiesenthal comes from a long line of artists. Grandmother Greta was an opera dancer, and works by great-great-grandfather Friedrich hang in the Vienna Historic Museum as well as the hotel. Although part of the structure remains a private home, the remainder of the building contains comfortable and cozy bedrooms. Each is outfitted with a different color scheme and contains at least one work of contemporary art, usually by an Austrian painter. Many of the good-size units are a bit quirky in decor, as exemplified by a leopard print club chair set against a sponge-painted wall. Nearly all the rooms have high ceilings, antiques, parquet floors, double-glazed windows, and good beds.

  Out of respect to the hotel's location within the Spittelberg (Vienna's former red light district and now a liberal and artsy residential neighborhood known for its Greenpeace affiliations), the owner has dedicated one of the best and largest bedrooms in the house to Josephina Mutzenbacher. During the final days of the Habsburgs, she was the most famous and high-profile madam in Vienna, and a hugely eccentric celebrity in her own right at the time. Naughty, a wee bit provocative, and tongue-in-cheek (Die Liebe in Wien!/Love in Vienna!), it is our preferred room. About half of the accommodations contain a shower instead of a tub. The hotel added 11 rooms stylishly designed by Matteo Thun, the famous Italian architects; and these are the best appointed and most desirable.

• © Frommer's 2013

Awards:

Frommer's

•  Recommended 2010