Hotel Havana

The opening of a new Bunkhouse hotel, by the Austin-based hotelier Liz Lambert, is news around Texas, naturally, but it’s also news beyond the borders of the erstwhile Republic — there are people, to be frank, for whom San Antonio has just become an option, now that the Hotel Havana is open. Our point isn’t to talk Texas down; the fact that there’s a network of quality small hotels spreading south and west is a testament to the sophistication of the Lone Star State.

In this town there’s no better location than the Riverwalk, and that’s where the Havana has stood, for close to a century. It was a bit of a landmark, and called for a sensitive approach for renovation — no stripping the place to the studs. The historical character of the building is still very much intact. And there’s a healthy dose of Cuban history as well — the Havana is shot through with a Hemingway-esque pre-Castro romance, especially in the cellar bar, long a notorious local nightspot.

Studio rooms start out smallish but as you move up the scale you quickly transition into borderline luxury territory, a feeling that’s only amplified by the hotel’s distinctive personality. And in the end it’s not the measurable quantities that matter so much as the character — which the Havana has in spades.