Cover The Rani Bagh pool courtyard at Six Senses Fort Barwara, Rajasthan, framed by sandstone arcades and the fort’s original 14th-century battlemented walls — one of the most ambitious adaptive reuse projects in Indian hospitality, taking nine years to complete.
The Rani Bagh pool courtyard at Six Senses Fort Barwara, Rajasthan, framed by sandstone arcades and the fort’s original 14th-century battlemented walls — one of the most ambitious adaptive reuse projects in Indian hospitality, taking nine years to complete.
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From a 1960s sugar mill in Guangxi to a 14th-century fort in Rajasthan, Asia’s most compelling adaptive reuse hotels share one quality: the building’s original purpose is not incidental to the experience but central to it
In Asia, some of the most considered hotel stays are in buildings that were never meant to be hotels at all. Former post offices, teak trading posts, royal guest villas, and industrial sugar mills have been converted into properties in which the original function is not disguised but made central to the experience. The eight hotels below represent some of the most thoughtful examples of adaptive reuse across the continent, spanning the Singapore River to the karst peaks of Guangxi.
1. Six Senses Fort Barwara, Rajasthan, India
Fort Barwara occupies a low ridge above Barwara Lake in Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan, approximately 30 minutes from Ranthambore National Park
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The fort was built by the Hada Chauhans, a Rajput clan who controlled the Kingdom of Ranthambore, and was conquered by the Rajawat dynasty in 1734, with the compound divided into separate palaces for diplomatic guests and for the women and children of the household. In the 20th century, it served as a war post and hunting lodge — Raja Man Singh of Barwara fought alongside British forces in the Second World War and was awarded the title Rao Bahadur — before falling into disrepair.
The resort’s main pool sits within the historic fort walls; the crenellated parapets and domed pavilions of the upper palaces are visible beyond
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The adaptive reuse was led by his grandson, Prithviraj Singh, and architects Nimish Patel and Parul Zaveri of Panika, and took more than a decade to complete. Six Senses opened 48 suites within the walls in October 2021, incorporating two original temples and two palaces into the resort rather than displacing them. The Six Senses Spa occupies the former women’s palace.
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2. 137 Pillars House, Chiang Mai, Thailand
The 1889 teak house which was originally the northern headquarters of the Borneo Company viewed from the lawn at 137 Pillars House, Chiang Mai
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Louis Leonowens, son of Anna Leonowens (the governess depicted in The King and I), arrived in Chiang Mai in 1886 as the Borneo Company’s superintendent and established its northern headquarters along the Ping River in 1889. The teak compound became the centre of the northern teak trade, with elephants moving logs from the forest to the river. After the company’s dissolution, the building passed through private hands, falling into disrepair and liable to flood each wet season.
Above The Parlour Lounge inside the original teak house, with carved fretwork ceiling panels, louvred shutters, and rattan furniture, references the building's late-19th-century colonial history.
Above Jack Bain’s Bar, set within the original 1889 teak house, is named after the last private owner of the compound
The Parlour Lounge inside the original teak house, with carved fretwork ceiling panels, louvred shutters, and rattan furniture, references the building's late-19th-century colonial history.
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In 2002, Bangkok architect Panida Wongphanlert purchased the property with the intention of using it as a family retreat, but its history prompted a different plan. Working with Habita Architects on the surrounding structures and a Chiang Mai University conservation specialist on the original teak house, she oversaw a four-year restoration that opened as a hotel in 2012. The 1889 teak building, named for the 137 pillars supporting it, now serves as the hotel’s library and lounge, with 30 suites arranged in newer Lanna-style buildings around the compound.
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3. Amantaka, Luang Prabang
The main facade of Amantaka, Luang Prabang
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Built in the early 20th century under French colonial administration, the compound of low-slung whitewashed buildings served as Luang Prabang’s provincial hospital for much of the 20th century. When a new hospital was completed in 2005, the site was vacated and fell briefly into disrepair. Nine of the fifteen original buildings are UNESCO World Heritage-listed, which governed the restoration — roof tiles and timber were sourced locally to match the originals.
An interior room with high ceilings, louvred doors and thick plaster walls, original to the hospital buildings
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Aman took possession of the site in 2007 and opened Amantaka two years later, the name combining the Sanskrit word for peace with a reference to the Tipitaka, the foundational texts of Theravada Buddhism. The adaptive reuse is unusually honest: the lobby occupies the former X-ray room, and the wide corridors, high ceilings and shady verandas of the original ward buildings survive intact. The 24 suites are arranged around a central courtyard and pool. Each October, on the anniversary of the hotel’s opening, monks perform a blessing of the buildings.
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4. Yangshuo Sugar House, Guangxi, China
The original 1960s sugar mill buildings reflected in the sunken plaza at dusk, with the karst peaks of Yangshuo rising directly behind the site
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The mill on the Li River in Guangxi was built in the 1960s, processing sugarcane through the era of China’s planned economy, before ceasing production in January 2001 and falling idle. Beijing-based Vector Architects, led by principal architect Gong Dong, retained the original mill and its industrial truss at the centre of the site, adding 117 guest rooms in new gabled structures built from hollow concrete blocks and board-formed concrete, materials chosen to read as contemporary while referencing the mill’s original masonry.
Above The swimming pool occupies the former sugarcane loading dock, framed by the mill’s original concrete truss structure with karst mountains visible beyond
Above The restaurant inside the original mill building, its industrial roof trusses and concrete columns left exposed; floor-to-ceiling glazing opens the space towards the Li River and surrounding forest
The swimming pool occupies the former sugarcane loading dock, framed by the mill’s original concrete truss structure with karst mountains visible beyond
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The mill building now houses the hotel’s bar, gallery and library, with the original sugar press kept intact at the bar. The loading dock that once received sugarcane has been converted into a pool cantilevered over the river. The property opened in 2017 as Alila Yangshuo, then parted ways with the brand in 2020; it now operates independently as the Yangshuo Sugar House.
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5. Amansara, Siem Reap, Cambodia
Above The central lawn at Amansara, Siem Reap, framed by the low-slung collonaded wings of Laurent Mondet’s 1962 compound; the canopy of mature trees is original to the Villa Princière estate
Above The circular rotunda of the dining room and the original curvilinear pool, reconstructed by Kerry Hill Architects from archival photographs when Aman restored the property ahead of its January 2003 opening
The central lawn at Amansara, Siem Reap, framed by the low-slung collonaded wings of Laurent Mondet’s 1962 compound; the canopy of mature trees is original to the Villa Princière estate
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French architect Laurent Mondet built the compound in 1962 for King Norodom Sihanouk to accommodate state visitors, originally naming it Villa Princière. The building is considered a landmark of New Khmer architecture, the modernist style Sihanouk championed during Cambodia’s post-independence cultural renaissance: low-slung forms, open-plan interiors, teak panelling, terrazzo floors and a cool monochrome restraint that sits somewhere between Palm Springs and Phnom Penh. Charles de Gaulle, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Peter O’Toole, while filming Lord Jim in Cambodia, all stayed at the hotel during its years as an exclusive government guesthouse.
Above The flat-roofed guest wing with its distinctive rubble-stone columns, characteristic of Mondet’s New Khmer architecture, which fused mid-century modernist forms with local Cambodian materials
The flat-roofed guest wing with its distinctive rubble-stone columns, characteristic of Mondet’s New Khmer architecture, which fused mid-century modernist forms with local Cambodian materials
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In the mid-1960s, Sihanouk gifted the villa to the state hospitality company SOKHAR, after which it passed through several names before the Khmer Rouge period left it derelict. Aman commissioned Kerry Hill Architects, with Ross Logie as lead designer, to reconstruct every aspect of the property from archival photographs. It opened in January 2003 with 12 suites arranged around the original curvilinear pool; 12 further pool suites were added in 2006, bringing the total to 24.
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6. The Fullerton Hotel, Singapore
Above Designed by Major P.H. Keys of Keys & Dowdeswell and completed in 1928, the neoclassical Fullerton Hotel Singapore sits at the mouth of the river where merchant ships once queued to collect mail via an underground tunnel to the pier
Designed by Major P.H. Keys of Keys & Dowdeswell and completed in 1928, the neoclassical Fullerton Hotel Singapore sits at the mouth of the river where merchant ships once queued to collect mail via an underground tunnel to the pier
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Built in 1928 on the site of Fort Fullerton to mark Singapore’s centenary, the neoclassical building served as the colony’s main post office — known as “Mile Zero”, from which all distances across the island were measured. Its 90-metre curved service counter was reputedly the longest in the world; a 35-metre tunnel ran beneath Fullerton Road to a pier, where mail bags were transferred directly to ships. During the Second World War, the building served as a makeshift hospital before becoming the headquarters of the Japanese military administration — it was here that General Percival informed Governor Sir Shenton Thomas of his decision to surrender Singapore in 1942.
Above The Doric colonnade of the former General Post Office, faithfully restored during the 2001 conversion led by Singaporean firm Architects 61
Above The central sky-lit atrium, created by Architects 61 during the hotel conversion, involved demolishing almost the entire original interior
The Doric colonnade of the former General Post Office, faithfully restored during the 2001 conversion led by Singaporean firm Architects 61
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The conversion to a hotel in 2001 was led by the Singaporean firm Architects 61, which demolished almost the entire interior to create a single, sky-lit atrium while restoring every detail of the original façade; the ballroom now occupies the basement sorting room, where mail once arrived via conveyor belt. It was gazetted as a national monument in 2015.
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7. Taj Falaknuma Palace, Hyderabad, India
The Italian and Tudor facade of Taj Falaknuma Palace, Hyderabad, designed by British architect William Ward Marret and completed in 1893 after nine years of construction
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Nawab Vikar-ul-Umra, Prime Minister of Hyderabad and uncle and brother-in-law of the sixth Nizam, laid the foundation stone in March 1884 and commissioned British architect William Ward Marret to design a residence in Italian and Tudor styles. The building took nine years to complete and, viewed from above, is laid out in the shape of a scorpion, its east and west wings forming the two pincers. In the spring of 1897, the sixth Nizam, Mir Mahboob Ali Khan, was invited to stay and so admired the palace that Vikar offered it to him; the Nizam paid a substantial sum rather than accept it as a gift. The seventh Nizam, Osman Ali Khan, never lived there, reportedly finding it too ostentatious, and decreed that no guest of lesser rank than a viceroy be permitted to stay.
The state dining room, where a single table seats 101 guests beneath painted ceilings and crystal chandeliers. The chairs are carved rosewood with green leather upholstery, original to the palace
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The palace fell into disuse after 1951, and by the time Princess Esra Jah, ex-wife of the eighth Nizam, agreed to oversee its restoration following a lease to the Taj group in 2000, it was derelict. Working from early 20th-century photographs, she directed a decade-long effort that brought in Italian artisans to recreate the original frescoes and specialist firms to restore embroidered textiles, leather and carpets. The library, holding around 5,900 volumes, was modelled on Windsor Castle’s. Taj Falaknuma Palace opened in November 2010 with 60 rooms.
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8. The Hermitage, Jakarta
The original three-storey Telefoongebouw facade on Jalan Cilacap, Menteng, was completed in 1923. The nine-storey guest tower added during the 2008–2014 restoration by architect Tom Elliot of PAI Design rises behind
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Completed in 1923 as the Dutch East Indies telephone exchange, the Telefoongebouw sits in Menteng, the colony’s first garden suburb and its administrative heart. The building’s post-independence biography is unusually eventful: after 1945, it housed the Komite Nasional Indonesia Pusat, the body that served as a precursor to the national legislature, before passing to the republican Education Department, then the Directorate General of Culture, and finally Bung Karno University.
The marble staircase in the original building’s lobby, with art deco ironwork balustrade. Wall dividers, window fittings and cornicing throughout the heritage structure are original to the 1923 building
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By the 2000s, it had fallen into serious disrepair. PT. Menteng Heritage Realty took ownership in 2008 and commissioned a restoration under architect Tom Elliot of PAI Design that preserved the original U-shaped neoclassical structure; only a small portion at the rear was demolished to accommodate a nine-storey guest tower. The original three-storey building now contains a lobby, restaurants and function spaces, with original wall dividers, window fittings and doors intact. Framed artefacts, roof tiles, bricks, floor tiles, and door hinges line the mezzanine corridor as a record of the building’s former life. The hotel opened in 2014.
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Jennifer Choo is Regional Managing Editor of Tatler Homes, covering architecture, interior design, and art across Asia. Based in Malaysia, she oversees regional content on luxury residential design and contemporary art collections. Legally trained but choosing to pursue her passion for design, she previously led notable design publications and worked as an interior stylist and art consultant for property developers, design firms, and private clients.
