Guild House Hotel

A rowhouse that once belonged to The New Century Guild, a 19th-century working women's organization, reopened in September 2021 as a twelve-room boutique hotel at 1307 Locust Street in Washington Square West. Each of the twelve rooms and suites is named for a historical Guild member. Travel + Leisure later named it one of the Best New Hotels in the World.

The place

The building stands at 1307 Locust Street, in an 1855 rowhouse that carries National Historic Landmark status. The neighborhood is walkable: the Avenue of the Arts and the Walnut Street shops are close, and Old City, with the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, is a short ride or walk away.

The concept

The New Century Guild supported working women through the 19th century, and its members included abolitionists, suffragists, activists, poets and artists. The house had never been a hotel before this conversion. Woman-owned Philadelphia studio ROHE Creative designed the rooms, and the Guild's history runs through the names and the decor.

Eliza Sproat Turner, a teacher, writer and Guild founder, gives her name to the junior suite known as the Founder's Suite, set in the Guild's former library, with greens, botanical prints and a pastoral mural. Florence Kelley, a founding member of the NAACP, and Emily Sartain, an artist and director of the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art and Design), each have a room. The Ruby Suite takes its name from a ruby butterfly pin worn by Guild members and occupies a former billiards room, with velvet furnishings, original millwork wainscoting and an Art Nouveau chandelier.

There is no front desk. Guests receive pin codes by email with their confirmation and let themselves into the building and their room. Afternoon cookies and handmade chocolates are set out, and the house sells products from women entrepreneurs, among them Sip & Sonder coffee and Fork & Melon bath and body goods. Listings describe room types from a Classic Room with a queen bed to a King Salon with a kitchenette.

Dining & wellness

The hotel has no restaurant of its own. The neighborhood around Locust Street supplies the dining, and the staff can point guests to places nearby. The afternoon cookies and chocolates are the only food the house itself offers.