San Francisco Proper Hotel

In August 2014, while builders were renovating it, the old Renoir Hotel at 45 McAllister Street caught fire on its fifth floor. The building survived, which was as well. Albert Pissis, the architect credited with bringing Beaux Arts to San Francisco, had designed it in 1904, a flatiron for the point where McAllister Street meets Market. It reopened in 2017 as San Francisco Proper, the facade kept and the lobby restored by local artisans using centuries-old techniques, and then Kelly Wearstler was let loose inside. In the lobby, abstract and Cubist canvases climb the walls between the pilasters, nearly edge to edge, so the old work and the new share every inch. Villon, the restaurant, has fluted blue columns and a dark marble bar rimmed in brass. The hotel says no two of its 131 rooms are alike. After the lobby, it would be a surprise if two were.

Recommended for anyone who would rather be down in the middle of San Francisco than admiring it from a hill, and who likes a room with something to look at. The Opera House and the Public Library are steps away on Civic Center plaza, and BART and Muni a minute from the door. Families are better provided for than the decor lets on: the Junior Suites connect, and one room type is simply called the Bunk Room. Charmaine's, the roof bar, sits 120 feet above Market Street, with striped armchairs round fire pits and the downtown towers beyond the glass rail. Putting fire pits on a building that has already caught fire once shows a forgiving nature.