Built in 1889 as the Berlin headquarters of the Dresdner Bank, the sandstone palazzo facing Bebelplatz — one of the most charged squares in the German capital, flanked by the State Opera and St. Hedwig's Cathedral — held its original purpose through two world wars before Rocco Forte Hotels converted it into the Hotel de Rome in 2006. The transformation was led by Olga Polizzi, Rocco Forte's design director, who treated the bank's remaining architectural fabric as the dominant material: the former banking hall became a ballroom, the original vault was preserved as a pool and spa, and the heavy classical stonework of the facade — its rusticated base, engaged Corinthian columns, and deep window reveals — was left exactly as Reinhardt & Süssenguth designed it. Inside, Polizzi's interiors move between two registers depending on the floor. The lower rooms carry a cooler, more restrained palette — charcoal upholstered headboards with shaped crests, patterned wool carpet in sienna and cream, Roman sketch prints framed above the beds — while the upper suites shift toward warmer tones, crimson velvet throws and graphic medallion carpeting giving them a more emphatic presence. The courtyard restaurant, enclosed beneath a dark-timbered pergola draped in climbing ivy and white-flowering roses, brings a quietly Mediterranean mood to the heart of a Prussian institution. The hotel holds 108 rooms across six floors, its address on Bebelplatz situating it at the precise center of Berlin's historic Mitte.

Previously a Rocco Forte property

Hotel de Rome is located on Bebelplatz, off Unter den Linden. It is a conversion of an existing building constructed in 1889 by architect Ludwig Heim (appointed master builder of the government), which housed the head office of Dresdner Bank until 1945. This is one of the few luxury hotels in Berlin located in an original building making use of its full architectural splendour and thereby offering guests an authentic Berlin experience.