Villa Kennedy

Hotel description

You’d expect the top-flight business hotels in Frankfurt, the financial center of Germany, to be skyscraperish modern glass-and-metal affairs. And quite often you’d be right. The Villa Kennedy, though, is something a bit different. Though it’s a high-end modern business hotel, like the other Rocco Forte hotels it’s a high-end modern business hotel inhabiting a thoroughly renovated historic building — in this case a distinctly un-skyscraperish century-old villa just south of the Main, on the residential side of Frankfurt, surrounded by museums rather than corporate headquarters.

What you get, then, is the best of both worlds: the sedate pleasures of villa life, complete with courtyard and manicured gardens, along with all the comforts of the modern luxury hotel. It’s an expansion, not just a renovation, so guests have the choice of traditionally-styled rooms in the old villa, or more contemporary ones in the new addition. Either way, they’re spacious, stylish, and lacking no convenience. Business travelers will appreciate the extensive meeting facilities, and everyone benefits from the full-service spa and fitness center. The Gusto restaurant and the JFK Bar are for dealmaking, not scenemaking — which, in a hotel like this, is rather as it should be.