The PrinceHotel

A St Kilda institution since 1936, this art deco corner building on Acland Street has long been as much a live-music venue and public bar as a place to sleep. Above the well-known Bandroom sit 39 rooms, each individually laid out, some with balconies looking across Fitzroy Street toward Port Phillip Bay. The interiors are pared-back and contemporary rather than nostalgic, a deliberate counterpoint to the building's period bones and the neighbourhood's faded-glamour reputation. Guests are a short walk from the beach, the Esplanade and the cake shops of Acland Street; a rooftop terrace, a wine bar and the original bars fill out the ground floor. It reads less as a hotel than as a piece of St Kilda's cultural furniture that happens to keep rooms upstairs.