The park around Prague's main train station, Hlavní nádraží, dubbed Sherwood Forest by cynics for its high level of criminal activity, isn't the first location that comes to mind when you think of a resort hotel. And yet, Falkensteiner Hotel Maria Prag has been enjoying a great deal of success since it first opened about a year and a half ago on the southwest corner of the park on Opletalova street.

"Hotel guests appreciate the nearby greenery," says Josef Neufus, the hotel's business development manager. "We haven't had any problems because of the location," he adds. "I think the hotel's facade commands respect."

The Falkensteiner chain of hotels has its roots in the Tyrolean Alps, where the first family-run resort was founded by Josef and Maria Falkensteiner. Since then 25 resorts have cropped up, some in places quite removed from the Alps, such as Croatia and the Czech Republic.

Despite the central city location, the Prague hotel retains a few resortlike characteristics. There is, for instance, an extensive relaxation area in the basement with a sauna and an exercise room, where the focus is on stretching and on slow-paced aerobic activities. "About three quarters of our guests come here for leisure, and many of them are seniors," says Neufus.

Because the hotel's 1876 building, which originally housed apartments and later offices, is classified as a historical landmark, the changes that the architects who were commissioned to design the interiors could introduce were quite limited. There was very little that could be done to alter the building's original facade, for instance.

"This made it a bit difficult at first to make our hotel noticeable from the street," says hotel director Marek Merhaut. "The facade doesn't stand out in any way from the surrounding buildings."

Another stipulation was to preserve the original stairwell with its curved, late 19th-century railing. Consequently, when you travel on foot between different floors, it feels more like you're on a visit to your grandma's old apartment building than vacationing in a resort hotel.

But the building's historical interior layout enriched rather than hindered the room design, according to Neufus. "Unlike in many modern hotels, every room here is different," he says. "It doesn't feel uniform."

Elsewhere, the architects had freer reign, and the result is decidedly modern. The design incorporates sleek lines and a simple color scheme to a surprisingly cozy effect. Warm hues of brown and beige dominate, while exposed wooden surfaces — there is no carpeting on the floors — give the rooms a clean, somewhat Scandinavian feel.

"Contemporary architecture and interior design are often seen as very cold," says Beate Mitterhofer of ra.be interior design, the Italian company in charge of transforming the hotel's interiors. "I would like to show that it is possible to design contemporary spaces where people feel at home."

One way to accomplish this was to optically bring down the hotel's high ceilings by hanging off-white drapery above the beds. And although the beige-brown color scheme is present throughout the building, each room has a slightly different layout and furniture. According to Mitterhofer, hotel design has been ruled for many decades by a classical style, which meant that every hotel around the world had almost the same interiors. "A hotel should show its location," she says.

Mitterhofer remembers well her first trip to Prague over 10 years ago, which, she says, influenced the hotel's design. "I had the sensation that I was visiting a city with a rich cultural life, but compared to other cities it was much slower," she says. "So to me it was clear to bring a piece of this culture [into this building]."

How did this translate into the design? One of the ways was to work with some of the historical details that remained in the building's interior. The designers found a few elements of Art Deco, for example, on the fireplace in the business lounge. "That's when I started to develop the idea of reinterpreting the Art Deco style in a contemporary way, always being aware of the Prague location," Mitterhofer recalls. In other instances, emphasizing the location meant including large-scale, stylized black-and-white photographs of historic Prague, and naming the rooms after famous Czech people.

Inevitably, in a few cases, trying to integrate the historical into the contemporary called for some compromises. "We had great cooperation from the curator of monuments," says Mitterhofer. She is unhappy about just one decision: the preservationists stipulated that historical but newly made tiles be used on the upper floors of the main stairways. "They are not half as charming as the originals," she says. "In my opinion they look quite fake."