Kimpton Santo

Kimpton Santo opened August 29, 2024 as San Antonio's first Kimpton hotel, a 360-room property in La Villita built around the restored 1858 German-English School — the building where NAFTA was signed in 1992. It pairs a new 10-story tower with schoolhouse suites carved into the historic structure and one of downtown's tallest rooftop bars.

The place

The hotel stands at 431 S. Alamo Street in La Villita, across from Hemisfair, on a site formerly used as a parking lot adjoining the historic German-English School buildings.

The concept

Kimpton Santo is San Antonio's first Kimpton-branded hotel, and it is built as a genuinely new hotel operation grafted onto the German-English School, an 1858 Texas Historic Landmark whose courtyard once hosted the signing of NAFTA in 1992. Architect HKS and designer Gina Deary of KTGY Simeone Deary Design Group deliberately exposed the school's original beams and limestone walls rather than covering them, layering in Bauhaus-inspired contemporary interiors and eight schoolhouse guest suites carved directly into the historic structure. It is the largest of the four hotels tracked here and the most architecturally ambitious conversion of a non-hotel building into a hotel that San Antonio has seen in this cycle.

Dining & wellness

Dean's Steak and Seafood occupies the historic schoolhouse with an oyster bar and courtyard seating under mature oak trees; The Study at Dean's is a two-floor speakeasy-style cocktail bar in the adjacent historic building. Tenfold Rooftop, one of the tallest open-air rooftops in downtown San Antonio, has a 10th-floor pool, cabanas and skyline views, alongside a fitness center and multiple ballrooms.