San Antonio’s New Emma Hotel by Roman and Williams
“The Pearl, an old San Antonio brewery deftly transformed into an entire neighborhood of restaurants, shops, and an outpost of the Culinary Institute of America, has just opened a place to stay. The 146-room Hotel Emma is the work of Roman and Williams, former set designers who have become masters of the historic conversion. Several years in the making, the quarters put original curiosities, such as fermentation tanks and a giant copper engine, to clever use. And there’s an overall expansiveness and down-home grace that plants the place firmly in Texas.
The eight-story structure was designed in 1898 by August Maritzen who ultimately had more than 80 breweries to his credit and is in the Second Empire style. “ ~ Margot Guralnick