Top 5 Most Unique Places to Stay in St. Louis

You can stay at a Marriott, Hilton, or Holiday Inn in any city. If you’re the traveler looking for something unique, or even a local just looking to celebrate a special occasion at a special place, St. Louis delivers. Here are our top 5.

#1. Gothic Heights Inn

The moment you walk through the door of this former 1892 church, you know you are somewhere different. Guests audibly gasp when they first see it: towering stained glass windows casting colored light across the hardwood floors, soft piano music drifting through the former sanctuary. There is no front desk, no elevator, no lobby full of strangers. Just the building, the light, and the quiet sense that whatever kind of hotel stay you were expecting, this is not it.

The inn is a Gothic Revival structure that has been standing for over 120 years: pointed arches, a bell tower, and stone foundation and local brick dressed with stained glass crafted by artisans who exhibited at the 1904 World’s Fair. After dark, Art Deco and Art Nouveau lamps cast warm light through the colored glass in a way that simply doesn’t look like anywhere else you’ve stayed.

Clifton Heights is a quiet residential neighborhood, and the building settles into a stillness at night that you don’t expect from a city stay. In the mornings, light comes through the stained glass and moves across the room as the sun rises. Every room catches it differently. It photographs poorly and sticks with you. With only four rooms on the property, it never feels like a hotel. Couples book it for an anniversary and end up coming back. We see that all the time.

The four rooms are each named for something specific to St. Louis. The World’s Fair Suite carries period decor and stained glass in the private bath. The Riverfront Suite leans nautical, with light that filters through colored glass in a way that changes the whole character of the room by time of day. The Hill Suite pays tribute to the Italian-American neighborhood two blocks away, with morning light that lands across the room in a way that’s hard to describe and easy to photograph. The Botanical Garden Grand Suite is the one guests treat themselves to: king sleigh bed, two-person jetted tub, double showerhead, private toilet and bidet room, and a walk-in closet with a makeup area. Every room has a private en-suite bath with a jetted or bubble tub.

The rooftop hot tub on the former bell tower is available exclusively to guests and has no equivalent on this list. At night, the St. Louis skyline surrounds you in every direction and the privacy is complete. During the Great Forest Park Balloon Race in September, guests have watched the entire fleet of 70 balloons launch from Forest Park and drift east from that exact spot. On the 4th of July, the fireworks are visible without leaving the water. Every other night it is just the city and whoever you came with. The sunsets from up there are something else entirely: the sky changes over the city in every direction, and watching twilight settle over the city from a rooftop hot tub is one of the more memorable ways to end a day in St. Louis.

Jesse and I live here — lower level, with our twin boys and the dogs. There’s no front desk, no property manager, just us. No communal breakfast table, no scheduled meal times. We stock grab-and-go breakfast each morning and leave a guide to the spots we actually go to. Guests tell us it’s the most personal stay they’ve ever had. We hear that a lot. You get the warmth of a boutique inn without the forced intimacy of a traditional Bed & Breakfast.

Clifton Heights is a quiet, established residential neighborhood with a small park steps from the front door. Gothic Heights Inn is 1.5 miles from Forest Park, two blocks from The Hill, and about as far from a standard hotel experience as you can get. Rates run $175 to $325 a night.

Read Google Reviews for Gothic Heights Inn

#2. St. Louis Union Station Hotel

St. Louis Union Station opened in 1894 as one of the busiest rail hubs in the country. At its peak, 100,000 passengers moved through it every day. When rail travel declined, the building sat largely empty for years before being converted into a hotel in 1985. It remains one of the largest adaptive reuse projects in American history.

The hotel sits on the western edge of downtown, steps from CITYPARK where St. Louis City SC plays and within walking distance of Enterprise Center, home of the St. Louis Blues. The Arch, Busch Stadium, and the riverfront are a straight shot east.

The Grand Hall is a stand out feature. A 65-foot barrel-vaulted ceiling, gold-leafed interior, Romanesque arches, stained glass windows, and a 230-foot clock tower that still keeps time over downtown. You check in inside a space that used to be a working train station, and the scale of it stops people cold every time.

Each evening from 5pm to 10pm, the Grand Hall hosts a 3D light show projected across that 65-foot ceiling. Flowers sway, fireworks burst, birds fly, and aquarium scenes drift through 30 animated vignettes set to music. A segment narrated by John Goodman revisits the station’s history through archival photographs of the landmark and its passengers. Jon Hamm, Bob Costas, Dan Dierdorf, Joe Buck, and St. Louis broadcaster Chris Kerber also appear throughout. The show was created by Technomedia, an award-winning collaborator with Cirque du Soleil, and was the first of its kind in the United States when it opened.

The Grand Hall is also one of the most sought-after wedding and event venues in St. Louis. We have stayed here twice: once for a wedding held in the hall itself, where the access and setting were unforgettable, and once when the hall was closed to hotel guests for a private event. The light show runs nightly but is suspended when the hall is rented for private events. If the show or the hall is a primary reason you are booking, call ahead to confirm.

Historic rail photographs line the hallways and common areas. The rooms carry period details throughout. The overall effect is less hotel-as-backdrop and more hotel-as-exhibit, the kind of place that mattered when trains were how Americans moved.

Room quality varies more than you might expect. On our most recent visit we were in a standard room, and it was exactly that: solid Hilton, nothing more. On a previous stay our Grand Hall King suite was a genuine step above, with a sitting area, a large walk-in shower, and real floor space. The room you book matters here. The tradeoff regardless of room type is the scale of the property itself. With 567 rooms inside a converted train shed, guests in far-flung wings can find themselves with a long walk just to reach the front desk or the Grand Hall. Parking runs $40 for self-park and $50 for valet. Street parking in the surrounding blocks is occasionally available, though we don’t recommend it.

What they have built around this conversion is unlike anything else in St. Louis: a 120,000-square-foot aquarium with 13,000 animals, a 200-foot Ferris wheel, mini golf, an indoor ropes course, and CITYPARK right next door where St. Louis City SC plays. It skews family-friendly. Good to know before you book. But as an example of what a great American train station can become, Union Station is extraordinary.

Read Google Reviews for St. Louis Union Station Hotel

#3. The Moonrise Hotel

Every other hotel on this list is selling you history, architecture, or art. The Moonrise is selling something different: cool. It is the most modern property on the list, and deliberately so.

The eight-story hotel sits on the Delmar Loop in University City, one of the more energetic strips in St. Louis, and is topped with the world’s largest man-made moon. The Loop itself is worth a few hours on its own: independent restaurants, record shops, vintage clothing, and the kind of foot traffic that keeps a street alive on a weeknight. The St. Louis Walk of Fame runs right along the sidewalk, with bronze stars honoring St. Louis natives from Chuck Berry and Tina Turner to T.S. Eliot and Tennessee Williams. The Pageant, one of the best mid-size music venues in the Midwest at around 2,500 capacity, is steps from the front door.

The moon theme runs through the whole property with a confidence that keeps it from feeling gimmicky. Step inside and the lobby delivers immediately: every phase of the moon depicted across the walls, a multicolored staircase that earns a second look, and a Chihuly glass piece suspended overhead like a supernova caught mid-burst. That same energy carries through the whole building: clean contemporary lines, bold design choices, and an aesthetic that would not look out of place in a 1960s vision of the future. If it occasionally reminds you of something out of The Jetsons, that is not entirely unintentional.

The 153 rooms are sharp and well-designed, and each one makes its own color statement. The themed rooms lean hard into the aesthetic and are not shy about it. No single room is trying to use every color at once, but across the whole hotel they have clearly worked through every crayon in the box. If you are looking for spa neutrals and calming tones, you will be disappointed. If you want a room that has a point of view, The Moonrise has one.

Nowhere is that more evident than in the 10 St. Louis Walk of Fame Suites. Each is individually themed and named for a star from the sidewalk outside: Vincent Price, Shelley Winters, Redd Foxx, Agnes Moorehead, and others. Every suite has an entry foyer, a king bedroom, a dining table for four, mini fridge and mixing area, and a sofa and director’s chair that lean fully into the retro-modern look. You’ll be taking pictures before you unpack.

Eclipse restaurant handles breakfast, lunch, and dinner with a solid seasonal menu.

The rooftop is the standout. Panoramic views over the Loop and the surrounding skyline, well-designed, and locals go there on purpose. It is one of the better rooftops in St. Louis and worth the visit even if you are not a hotel guest.

The Moonrise is also one of the few hotels on this list that welcomes pets. Good to know if you’re traveling with a dog.

If the other hotels on this list feel like stepping into the past, The Moonrise feels like stepping into the future as imagined in 1962.

#4. The Cheshire Inn

The Cheshire Inn is a boutique hotel on Clayton Road in Richmond Heights. Washington University and Forest Park are both within a mile, and the distances look walkable on a map. In practice, Clayton Road runs through some of the largest intersections in the city, so driving or rideshare is still the right call when leaving the property. Underground parking is available on site, which puts it ahead of other options on this list. The building reads as Tudor from the street: half-timbered facade, lattice stained-glass windows, a British flag over the entrance. Step inside and the lobby extends the commitment further. Stone fireplace with a hand-carved mantle. A massive stuffed bear as a focal point. 18th-century antiques and furnishings throughout.

The organizing idea is British literary culture, and it goes all the way down. Every room and suite is named for a specific British author, poet, or playwright and designed around their world. Brideshead Revisited. A Passage to India. A full Sherlock Holmes signature suite. The menus, the decor, the hallways: it all holds together as a single world rather than a collection of themed rooms. That coherence is what separates The Cheshire from most themed hotels, which usually feel like a costume rather than a place.

We stayed in a first-floor king suite with a private exterior door to the pool courtyard. The pool was closed during our visit, which was a miss, but the layout makes clear how well it would work on a warm evening. The Fox and Hounds more than made up for it.

The Fox and Hounds is a small hunting lodge bar accessed through a hidden passageway: dark wood paneling, mounted game, oil paintings of horses, and a stone fireplace big enough to mean something. Pull up a stool or sink into one of the leather chairs and work through a whiskey list that covers Irish, American, and Scottish varieties with genuine range. Small plates run until 10pm most nights. The bar staff give you a real recommendation, not whatever’s easiest to say. Locals know about this place. Most hotel guests stumble onto it by accident.

Basso, the underground restaurant connected through the hotel, carries the same dark and moody aesthetic into dinner. The amenities are full-service: 24-hour coffee and tea, a bellman, and the Clayton Courtyard pool with cabanas and poolside service from the Fox and Hounds. Complimentary breakfast is included each morning, though we’ll be honest: it’s a standard self-serve hotel buffet. Perfectly fine, not a reason to choose the hotel. The Fox and Hounds the night before is the better memory.

It does not wink at you. It just is. We would send literary-minded guests there without hesitation.

Read Google Reviews for The Cheshire

#5. 21c Museum Hotel

21c is a national hotel brand built around a smart idea: put a functioning contemporary art museum inside a hotel and make the art free and open to the public. The St. Louis location does this well.

The building is a converted YMCA in downtown St. Louis, 173 rooms, and the art is everywhere. Rotating exhibitions throughout the public spaces, original work in every guest room, installations that change regularly. Current programming includes work by serious artists, not lobby filler. The Elevate at 21c series specifically highlights emerging regional talent, which means the collection has a connection to St. Louis rather than feeling like it was shipped in from a warehouse.

The first thing you notice when you walk in is a massive blue glass sphere dominating the center of the lobby. It is stunning in the way real art is stunning: it earns your attention before you know what you are looking at. The rest of the hotel follows from that moment.

The rooms at 21c are their weakest feature, and guest reviews have made the same point consistently. Ours was comfortable but smaller than expected for the price, with decent finishes and a functional layout that simply doesn’t match the energy of everything surrounding it. Of the five hotels on this list, the guest rooms here are the weakest. If you are booking for space and luxury, look elsewhere. If you are here for the art, the bar, and the building, the room stops mattering quickly.

The bar is excellent: well-designed, well-stocked, and a natural gathering point given how striking the surrounding space is. Idol Wolf, the hotel restaurant, serves Spanish-influenced food with a Midwestern sensibility and it works, though both the restaurant and the bar lean expensive. Budget accordingly. The athletic club retains the original pool from the YMCA days, now updated, along with a hot tub and sauna, one of the better hotel amenity packages in St. Louis.

A few things worth knowing before you book. The hotel describes its location as being in the heart of the city’s revival, which is an accurate and diplomatic way to put it. Guests unfamiliar with St. Louis should plan to valet or rideshare rather than walk, and avoid leaving valuables in the car. Valet starts at around $50 a day and should be strongly considered based on the location, but street parking is also available.

We didn’t have any issues during our stay, but there are enough guest reviews flagging inconsistencies in service and management to take seriously. The gorgeous common spaces and artwork go a long way toward smoothing over the rough edges, but it is not a flawless experience at these prices.

If you’re here for the art, the bar, and the building, there’s nothing else like it downtown.

Read Google Reviews for 21c Museum Hotel

The Honest Summary

St. Louis has more going on in this category than most people realize. Union Station offers something you can’t replicate. 21c’s art and bar are legitimately special. The Cheshire commits to its world completely. The Moonrise puts you in the middle of the Loop on a Friday night. Every property on this list offers something a standard hotel room simply cannot.

Gothic Heights Inn is the only converted church on this list, the only rooftop hot tub, and with four rooms and two owners who live here, the most personal experience of the five. We hear it stay after stay: they’ve never been anywhere quite like it.

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