5 new hotels around the world housed in historical buildings and venues

A junior suite at the Fifth Avenue Hotel New York City. — The Fifth Avenue Hotel

When is a hotel more than a place to sleep? When it’s in a building with a storied past, allowing guests to go back in time to the Gilded Age or Edwardian era as easily as they go to the gym or spa.

Nowadays, you can check into a 17th-century former soap factory on the French Riviera, or part of the Old War Office in London, or a Renaissance-palazzo-style building that was once a bank in New York.