Located on a verdant, tree-lined suburban street, the only thing that distinguishes Patrick Hellmann Schlosshotel from the other mansions in Grunewald is a small sign lit subtly in white lights. Not surprisingly, it started out as a private residence in 1914. Subsequent renovations by Patrick Hellmann split the difference between reverent Bavarianism and sleek contemporary poise.

Originally intended as an office building in 1912, the building that now houses the Orania survived the destruction of two world wars to emerge as a classic remnant of old Berlin in the city’s hip Kreuzberg neighborhood. Designed by hotelier Dietmar Mueller-Elmau, owner of the famous Schloss Elmau in the Alps, the rooms are eclectic, a bit bohemian in their visual style, but verge on the extravagant in their comforts.

Put simply, it’s the sort of hotel we’ve been wanting to see from Berlin for a while. Built in a 19th-century residential building in Mitte, the district that’s still right in the mitte of everything that matters in Berlin, the charmingly oddball Gorki Apartments are just what the doctor ordered: a proper hipster hotel without any of the off-putting try-hardness that sinks many a similar effort.

This neo-Baroque telegraph office was built back in 1910, in an era when even utilitarian industrial structures were expected to serve a partly ornamental purpose. Today this landmark has been put to use as Telegraphenamt Berlin, a stylish boutique hotel that freely mixes stark bare brick and exposed girders with Deco flourishes and classic modernism.

This Thirties embassy building was built to convey a grand impression — and as Das Stue, the tradition continues. Its atmosphere, after a massive architectural overhaul by Annette Axthelm and an interior renovation by the renowned Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola, is about as far as you can get from the boxes-and-boxes sameness of the typical contemporary hotel.

Right next door to Berlin’s Wilmina Hotel is something that shares an outlook, if not a visual aesthetic. Wilmina Apartments & Lofts occupies a modern building by Grüntuch Ernst Architects, and it’s connected to its sister via a courtyard garden. But inside you’ll find not conventional hotel rooms but loft-style apartments, decorated in a more decidedly modernist and minimalist style.

A former courthouse and women’s prison in Charlottenburg is the unexpectedly gorgeous raw material for Wilmina, a boutique hotel whose renovation leaves much of its original detail intact, but turns its atmosphere 180 degrees from its original purpose — and the sheer welcoming tranquility of the place is similarly the polar opposite of the edgy, confrontational approach favored by many other Berlin boutique hotels.

Going back to 1913, the hotel now known as Roomers Berlin Steinplatz has always had a glamorous reputation, counting Vladimir Nabokov and Brigitte Bardot among its famous guests. One hundred years later, the Art Nouveau landmark reopened as a sleek, twenties-inspired boutique hotel that helped lure visitors out of the Mitte and into an up-and-coming West Berlin neighborhood like Charlottenburg.

From the exterior, it might look a bit more traditional than what you’d expect from a boutique hotel in the former East Berlin, but hotels like Château Royal are a big part of what makes this city perennially hip, and not just fleetingly fashionable. It’s made from a pair of historic buildings, one from the mid-19th century and another from the early 20th, and its interiors are inspired by both eras.

Time and again we’ve seen stylish hotels pitch themselves to the creative class, and then price themselves too high for their intended audience to afford. It’s even more important in Berlin that the hip hotels make allowances for guests with more taste than cash. Enter the Michelberger, where bankers and lawyers are by no means excluded, but neither is anyone else.

A thorough renovation at the hands of the American designers Dayna Lee and Ted Berner leaves the Hotel Zoo looking better than ever. The façade and basic structure have been lovingly restored to its nineteenth-century heyday, and the interiors have been completely re-imagined. Modern fixtures and electronics exist side-by-side with classically inspired furnishings and décor that explicitly recalls the golden age of the Twenties.

Sly Berlin stakes out a corner of Friedrichshain that’s rapidly evolving. This spot, closer to Volkspark Friedrichshain than to the Spree, is close to the heart of all that’s cool in the so-called New East. The 150 rooms are as stylish as you’d expect, and perhaps warmer and more richly figured; parquet floors and classic design pieces share space with Marshall bluetooth speakers.

Call it an urban inn, a serviced apartment, a home-stay with a little extra privacy — whatever it is, Prenzlauer Berg’s five-room Linnen isn’t a typical hotel. Check-in takes place in a quirky little café on the ground floor, where you’ll often find one of the owners chatting with local coffee-drinkers and welcoming in new guests. Continue upstairs and you’ll find five homey, off-beat rooms that are positively packed with character.

It doesn’t get much heavier than the Hotel de Rome, a converted 19th-century bank building off the Bebelplatz in old East Berlin — its stone walls and neoclassical architecture are a perfect match for the high seriousness of the Rocco Forte house style. This hotel is a lodging of choice for business-class visitors, and may well see more deals done as a hotel than it did during its tenure as the GDR’s central bank.