25 Amsterdam Hotels With a Story
A shipping house, a savings bank, an orphanage, a newspaper office, a dockside crane, and canal houses by the dozen.
Amsterdam runs its hotels through the buildings it had lying around: a shipping house, a savings bank, an orphanage, a newspaper office, and canal houses by the dozen. This list has a hotel inside a dockside crane, one scattered across the city’s old bridge-keeper cabins, and the former city hall where a future queen was married.
The list is grouped by character, not ranked. Each hotel’s name links to its own site, where the rate is current and you book direct.
The grand old ones
Anantara Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky · Dam Square
The Krasnapolsky grew out of a café a Polish tailor took over on the Warmoesstraat in 1866, and he expanded it building by building onto Dam Square. Its glass-roofed Winter Garden, built in 1879, is still the hotel’s signature room. Anantara took it over in 2022, its first hotel in the Netherlands.
InterContinental Amstel Amsterdam · Amstel riverside
The Amstel opened in 1867 as Amsterdam’s first grand hotel, built on the river by Cornelis Outshoorn. It was part of the physician Samuel Sarphati’s plan to modernize the 19th-century city. It has been a stop for visiting royalty and performers ever since.
De L’Europe Amsterdam · Muntplein
The present De L’Europe opened in 1896 on the Amstel at Muntplein, where inns had stood before it. Freddy Heineken bought it, and the Heineken family still holds it. It sits on the old Rondeel, a bastion of Amsterdam’s medieval wall.
Sofitel Legend The Grand Amsterdam · Oudezijds Voorburgwal
Parts of the complex go back to the 15th century; from 1578 it was the Prinsenhof, lodging visiting royalty and then the city’s Admiralty. It served as Amsterdam’s city hall from 1808 until 1988. Princess Beatrix, later the queen, had her civil wedding here in 1966. It became a hotel in 1992.
Used to be something else
The Hoxton, Lloyd · Eastern Docklands
The building went up in 1921 for a shipping line, to house emigrants waiting for their ships to South America. It was a detention site in the war and a juvenile detention center until 1989. It reopened in 2004 as the Lloyd Hotel, known for rating its rooms from one to five stars in the same building, and became The Hoxton, Lloyd in 2023.
Grand Hotel Amrâth Amsterdam · Prins Hendrikkade
The hotel is in the Scheepvaarthuis, the Shipping House, built in the 1910s as a shared headquarters for Dutch shipping companies. It is considered the first major work of the Amsterdam School, designed by Johan van der Mey with Michel de Klerk and Piet Kramer. It became a hotel in 2007.
Conservatorium Hotel · Museum Quarter
The building opened in 1901 as the national postal savings bank, and later housed the Sweelinck music conservatory, which gave the hotel its name. Piero Lissoni converted it, adding a glass atrium, and it opened as a hotel in 2011. Mandarin Oriental took it over in 2024.
W Amsterdam · Spuistraat
The W spreads across two landmark buildings on the Spuistraat: a former telephone exchange and the old KAS Bank headquarters. It opened in 2015 as the brand’s first hotel in the Netherlands. Its pool and bar sit on the roof of the old bank.
Volkshotel · Wibautstraat
The Volkshotel is in the old headquarters of the newspaper de Volkskrant, which left the 1960s building in 2007. It opened in 2014 and kept working creative studios alongside the rooms. On the roof there are hot tubs, a sauna, and the Canvas bar.
Hotel Arena · Oosterpark
Hotel Arena is in a former Catholic orphanage built beside the Oosterpark in the 1890s. The orphanage’s old chapel is now the hotel’s events and club space. It is a member of Design Hotels.
Soho House Amsterdam · Spui
Soho House is in the Bungehuis, built around 1920 for the trading firm Bunge & Co. It later belonged to the University of Amsterdam and was the site of a 2015 student occupation known as the Battle of the Bungehuis. Soho House opened here in 2018.
The College Hotel · Oud-Zuid
The College Hotel is in a late-19th-century former school in Oud-Zuid. It reopened after a full redesign by Piet Boon. Its name comes from the students who once trained for hospitality careers on its staff.
Knitted-together canal houses
Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam · Herengracht
The Waldorf Astoria was made from six adjoining 17th- and 18th-century canal palaces on the Herengracht. One of them is attributed to the Golden Age architect Philips Vingboons. It opened in 2014.
Pulitzer Amsterdam · Prinsengracht
The Pulitzer runs through twenty-five connected canal houses across the Prinsengracht and Keizersgracht. Peter Pulitzer, grandson of the newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, founded it in 1970.
The Dylan Amsterdam · Keizersgracht
The Dylan stands on the Keizersgracht where Amsterdam’s first municipal theatre opened in 1637 and burned down in 1772. The courtyard gateway survives from the theatre, and a Catholic almshouse stood here afterward. Anouska Hempel opened the hotel in 1999, and it was renamed the Dylan in 2004.
Ambassade Hotel · Herengracht
The Ambassade runs across a row of 17th- and 18th-century canal houses on the Herengracht. It keeps a library of books signed by the authors who have stayed, many of them in town for Amsterdam’s literary festivals.
Hotel Estheréa · Singel
The Estheréa fills a row of 17th-century canal houses on the Singel. The same family has run it for three generations, since the 1940s.
Canal House · Keizersgracht
Canal House is set in three adjoining 17th-century merchant houses on the Keizersgracht. It was restored into a small hotel with the canal-house interiors kept intact.
Seven Bridges Hotel · Reguliersgracht
The Seven Bridges takes its name from the view down the Reguliersgracht, where seven arched bridges line up one behind the next. It is a small family-run hotel full of antiques and Persian rugs.
Kimpton De Witt Amsterdam · Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal
The De Witt was Kimpton’s first hotel in Europe, opened in 2017 near Dam Square. It takes in a trio of 17th-century houses known as the Three Little Sisters.
One of a kind
Crane Hotel Faralda · NDSM, Amsterdam-Noord
The Faralda is three suites built inside a decommissioned 1950s harbor crane at the old NDSM shipyard across the IJ. It opened in 2014. A hot tub sits on the open top deck, about fifty meters up.
SWEETS hotel · Across the city
SWEETS is scattered across the city in former bridge-keeper houses, the little cabins where the operators who raised Amsterdam’s bridges once worked. Starting in 2018, the studio Space & Matter turned the redundant cabins into standalone suites, each on its own canal.
Hotel Jakarta Amsterdam · Javakade
Hotel Jakarta opened in 2018 on the Javakade, the quay where ships once left for Batavia, now Jakarta. It was built to run energy-neutral, on a load-bearing bamboo frame, around a subtropical indoor garden.
Hotel Not Hotel · Amsterdam-West
At Hotel Not Hotel each room is its own art installation — one hidden behind a bookcase, one built around a vintage tram car. They are arranged around a central bar.
Zoku Amsterdam · Weesperbuurt
Zoku opened in 2016 as a live-work loft hotel, built for people staying weeks rather than nights. Its compact lofts were an early take on the room that doubles as a home office.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are these hotels ranked?
No. The groups sort them by character, and the order within each group carries no meaning.
What made a hotel interesting enough for this list?
A story. Every entry was a bank, a warehouse, an orphanage, a theatre, or a canal house with a past. Comfort alone did not qualify a hotel.
Why are there no prices?
Rates change daily and a priced list goes stale in a month. Every hotel name links to its own site, where the rate is current and you book direct.
Which hotel puts me closest to the day trips on this site?
Most day trips from Amsterdam leave by train from Centraal station. The hotels in the old centre — the Krasnapolsky, the Grand, the Amrâth by the station — put you closest.
Do the small hotels book out faster than the grand ones?
Usually. The small canal-house hotels — Seven Bridges, Canal House, the Estheréa — hold only a handful of rooms and fill first. Book those before the grand houses.