The 4-star superior Prestige Hotel Budapest combines contemporary design with stylistic elements from the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy – following comprehensive refurbishment of the historic 1860s building by a team of architects and interior designers in 2014/15. The result is a charming retro flair, rekindling the glamour of a glorious past in the context of modern-day Budapest. This flair is also evident in the luxury bathrooms of the hotel’s 85 rooms, featuring purist sanitary ceramics from Villeroy & Boch’s Architectura collection – thus creating a consistent vintage style throughout the entire building.
The Prestige Hotel Budapest is situated in District V – the Belváros-Lipótváros Inner City district – a vibrant and popular commercial centre right in the heart of Budapest. Its central location and vicinity to the Danube river also makes it a very attractive destination for tourists. Situated on the Pest side of the Danube, the area still has an air of culture and bohème, evoking the glories of 19th and early 20th century Budapest, combining vintage looks and classical elegance with the demands of modern life.
The neoclassicist building with a listed façade from 1860 has undergone numerous changes throughout its history. Originally conceived as a residential building by the famous Hungarian architect József Hild, it has been modified several times and was last used as an office building, before its new owner Mazen Al Ramahi initiated the most recent comprehensive refurbishment and conversion into a prestigious 4-star superior hotel. In the early 2000s, the building had already been given a new reinforced concrete structure, while maintaining the historic façade. The inner courtyard areas were also redesigned in the process. In 2014, work began to remodel the building yet again, based on designs by architects Péter Hegedüs and Ágnes Bolyó. Their design approach was to refurbish everything that was historically valuable and worth preserving, while upgrading the building functionally, and bringing it up to modern standards in terms of design and energy efficiency. Responsible for the spectacular interior design were Virág Vörös, Csilla Sáfrány and Tünde Bagyinszkiné Kiss. The new hotel opened in April 2015.
In addition to 85 comfortable rooms in four different categories, the splendidly refurbished hotel also sports a Michelin-starred restaurant – the “Costes Downtown” – a prestigious conference room in historic décor, a relax and fitness area and a saloon. One of the most striking features of the Prestige Hotel Budapest is its atrium lobby, spanning the full height of the six-storey building. All rooms are accessed via galleries overlooking the atrium, evoking the charm of the building’s original residential use.
The consistent design concept permeates all public and private areas of the hotel. The interior design team developed a skilful blend of styles, combining historic elements with modern materials and a minimalist formal language. This creates a charming vintage style that transports guests back to the heydays of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, while maintaining all modern-day comforts. High-quality materials and features are judiciously placed throughout the entire hotel. Stunning crystal chandeliers combine with mirror-polished stone and mosaic detailed bronze flooring, opulent designer furniture in sumptuous velvet, creating highlights without appearing overly ostentatious. The rooms, too, which come in the categories Standard, Deluxe, Executive and Prestige Suite, exude a confident vintage chic, matching modern comfort with historic flair in graceful harmony. Pastels and gold lead the colour scheme, complemented by hand-painted silk wallpaper from England and opulent fabrics. This modern glamour is also evident in the luxury bathrooms of the hotel’s 85 rooms, where purist sanitary ceramics from Villeroy & Boch’s Architectura collection support the successful blend of modernity, elegance, carefully chosen materials and ornament. Splendour and minimalism, bohemian past and comfortable present – the Prestige Hotel Budapest unites these contrasts in blissful harmony.