Art Hotels

The jam works ran on this stretch of Hunter Street for most of a century, and the conversion kept the evidence. Sandstone and brick were left rough. Loading doors, beams and painted signage were retained instead of being smoothed away. The building reads as a factory made habitable, not as a new hotel wearing old bricks.

Rooms sit behind those walls and differ because the shells differ. Some look across the water at Victoria Dock. Others face inward, across the covered atrium that now carries the circulation. Art is the organising idea rather than a decorative afterthought, and because the hang changes, two stays are unlikely to look the same.

Within this wire the Henry Jones is the urban entry. It stands a short walk from Salamanca Place and from the ferry that runs up the Derwent, which puts it closer to a working port than to a retreat. Hobart winters are cold and dark by mainland standards, and the waterfront weather is part of the address rather than a footnote to it. Aspect matters here more than floor level, so it is worth asking which way a room faces before anything else is settled.

St Kilda has been rebuilt around this corner several times over. The building itself is interwar, heavy and flat-fronted, the kind of frontage that once held a public bar on the ground floor and rooms above it. The conversion did not try to restore a period interior. It stripped back instead, and the rooms are pale, plain and quiet in a way that reads as a deliberate argument against the street outside.

That contrast is the point. Fitzroy Street runs down to the bay, and the hotel sits where the beach traffic meets the residential blocks behind. The public rooms carry most of the character: a dining room, a bar, and spaces used for music and events that predate the current fit-out by decades.

Among the Australian art hotels on this wire, The Prince is the least scenic and the most urban. Nothing about it is remote. Trams pass the door, the beach is a few minutes on foot, and the city centre is a short ride north. Guests who come expecting a retreat will find a city hotel with restraint; guests who want the neighbourhood will find themselves in the middle of it.

The Barossa is farmland first. Marananga is a small settlement on the western side of the valley, and the hotel is built into working vineyard country rather than placed at a distance from it. The architecture keeps itself low. Suites are strung out along the site so that each one has its own terrace, its own aspect, and a stretch of vines rather than a car park in front of it.

Inside, the rooms are large and plain-walled, with art used sparingly and the view treated as the main event. There is no attempt at a grand lobby. Circulation happens outdoors, between buildings, which changes the feel of the place: guests walk under the sky several times a day, and the weather is part of the routine.

On this wire The Louise is the agricultural entry. Where the Hobart hotel is industrial and The Prince is urban, this one is horizontal and rural, and the difference is the whole reason both are here. Summers in the Barossa run hot and dry, and the light in January is severe. A car is effectively necessary; the valley has no public transport worth the name.

The site does most of the work. The Mossman River comes down out of the gorge in clear, cold, fast water, and the lodge is built along the bank where the rainforest still stands. Timber pavilions sit up on posts, both for airflow and because the forest floor is left alone. Walkways connect them, so guests move through the canopy rather than along an internal corridor.

The interiors are quiet, timber-lined and low-contrast, and the planting is allowed to press up against the glass. Art here is closer to craft: local timber, weaving, and works that pick up the greens and browns immediately outside. Nothing competes with the trees, which appears to be the intention.

Compared with the rest of this wire, Silky Oaks is the tropical entry and the only one where the climate is the defining constraint. The wet season runs roughly from December to March, with heavy rain, high humidity and occasional road closures. Cairns is the practical arrival point, and the drive north follows the coast. Guests who want to swim in the river should ask staff which sections are used, and when.

The Top End floodplain is not scenery in the ordinary sense. It floods, dries, burns and refills on an annual cycle, and the lodge is built to sit lightly on top of that rather than to resist it. Pavilions are tented, raised on decking and screened rather than glazed. The effect is that birds, wind and water are present inside the room at all hours, which is either the appeal or the objection, depending on the guest.

Days are organised around the country rather than around the building. Airboats cross the shallow water when the plain is wet, and vehicles work the tracks when it dries. Between those, there is very little to do, and the lodge does not pretend otherwise.

On this wire Bamurru is the Northern Territory entry and the least conventional structure of the six. It is also the most seasonal: the lodge closes for part of the year, and the wet season changes what is reachable. Darwin is the nearest city, several hours away by road. Guests should treat the transfer arrangements as part of the booking rather than an afterthought.

The coast here is granite, low scrub and surf, and the building is arranged to stay out of the way of it. Villas are strung along the clifftop as individual units with their own outdoor space, so there is no shared corridor and very little communal circulation. The architecture is rectilinear and quiet, using timber, stone and a lot of glass on the seaward side.

That layout produces a particular kind of stay. Guests see very few other guests. Meals and provisions lean towards self-catering, and the region supplies the rest: the Margaret River vineyards are inland, the surf breaks are immediately below, and Yallingup itself is a small settlement rather than a resort town.

Within this wire, Injidup is the coastal entry and the most private. It has none of the industrial fabric of Hobart, none of the street life of St Kilda, and none of the wildlife of the Mary River. What it has is exposure: the weather comes straight off the ocean, and winter storms are loud. The drive down from Perth takes about three hours, and there is no realistic alternative to a car.