Buildings designed to prevent people from leaving are being transformed into places where guests pay considerable sums to get in.
By Motti Verses
A visit to central Jerusalem last week revealed a city where change is in the air. Cranes, scaffolding and additions to historic buildings along Jaffa Road, together with new hotels and ambitious developments, are gradually reshaping the face of the capital. At night, in the heart of the Russian Compound, I found myself admiring the illuminated Holy Trinity Cathedral, a striking reminder of just how extraordinary this historic enclave is.
Yet right beside it, time seems to have stood still.
The Elizabeth Courtyard, built in the 19th century as part of a network of hostels established by Imperial Russia for pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land, still houses the Jerusalem District Police headquarters and a detention center. Fences, security installations and holding cells continue to occupy part of one of the city’s most prominent historic compounds. In 2026, bars and razor wire surrounding a 19th-century building seem to belong to another era.
The contrast becomes even more striking after a short walk through the Russian Compound. Sergei Courtyard, built in the late 19th century as an elegant hostel for pilgrims, went through numerous incarnations over the years and was also used by Israeli institutions. In 2008, the government decided to transfer the compound to Russia’s ownership. In 2017, the Sergei Palace opened there as a four-star boutique hotel, alongside a restaurant, museum and concert hall. Yet across the street, the fenced detention center remains in full view.
Within minutes’ walking distance, then, stand two historic Russian compounds and two entirely different stories. One has been restored and transformed into a place of hospitality and culture; the other continues to function as a detention facility.
What is surprising is that Jerusalem was already envisioning a different future for the site more than a quarter of a century ago. In April 1999, the local planning and the building committee approved a plan to relocate the police headquarters and detention center and rehabilitate the Russian Compound. The proposal included, among other elements, a 150-room hotel and another hotel along the compound wall.
Yet, 27 years later, both buildings remain operational, with bars still clearly visible. Any attempt to give them a new purpose first requires finding another location for the police and the detention facilities. That has not happened.
One need not travel abroad to understand the potential of such a transformation. The historic Kishle in Jaffa, which served as a prison during the Ottoman period and later as a police station, reopened in 2018 as the luxury Setai Tel Aviv hotel. Ancient stonework, arches and historic courtyards are now integrated into the hotel’s guestrooms, spa and swimming pool.
Around the world, what once seemed an oddity has become a trend: buildings designed to prevent people from leaving are being transformed into places where guests pay considerable sums to get in.
One of the newest and most intriguing examples comes from Japan, not far from Kyoto. This summer, Hoshinoya Nara Prison opened as a luxury hotel inside a former prison originally built in the early 20th century. The institution operated for more than a century and was designated as an Important Cultural Property of Japan. Hoshino Resorts transformed it into a luxury hotel with 48 suites, accompanied by a museum telling the story of the former prison.
In Berlin, the Wilmina hotel opened in 2022 in a former women’s prison. Architects transformed the prison yards into gardens and combined former cells to create guestrooms. The project went on to win the German Sustainability Award for Architecture.
A year later, The Interlude opened in Melbourne, an unusual luxury hotel set within the walls of the historic Pentridge Prison. Its 19 luxury suites were created by combining original prison cells, while the property also features a wellness area and an underground swimming pool.
The trend began in Istanbul exactly 30 years ago. The 1978 film Midnight Express etched Sultanahmet Prison into the global imagination as a symbol of fear and brutal prison conditions. Israeli actor Paul L. Smith, who played the brutal Turkish prison guard Hamidou, will always be remembered as one of cinema’s most terrifying prison guards. But the neoclassical building underwent a remarkable transformation, becoming the luxury Four Seasons Hotel. Visiting it is a fascinating experience for anyone interested in historic hotels, and there is an intriguing Jerusalem connection as well. Turkish interior designer and architect Sinan Kafadar, who was involved in the hotel’s design, also designed the interiors of Jerusalem’s Waldorf Astoria, itself created within the historic Palace Hotel.
Prisons repurposed into hotels, therefore, are no longer simply a collection of isolated curiosities. Prison-to-hotel conversions have become part of a broader movement in luxury and boutique hospitality: giving new life to historic buildings, even when their past is complicated and dark.
The phenomenon has also attracted academic attention. In a paper published last year in Tourism Management, Brianna Wyatt of Oxford Brookes University describes prisons converted into accommodation as an emerging form of a ‘heritage hotel’ and points to their growing presence around the world. A ‘heritage hotel’ is a historic building which could be a palace, castle or a former hospital that has been converted into a unique place to stay while preserving its original architecture and cultural significance. Wyatt however, introduces an important warning to the trend. A prison is a place where people were deprived of their freedom and, in many cases, suffered. Its history should therefore never be reduced to exotic scenery for paying guests seeking a luxury experience.
When such conversions are handled sensitively and responsibly, she argues, these hotels can become “sites of conscience”. Places that encourage visitors to confront the history of the site rather than simply enjoy its unusual aesthetics. That distinction is crucial: between preservation and adaptive reuse that respect a building’s past, and turning human suffering into “atmosphere” or a marketing device.
And Jerusalem?
In 2026, the police headquarters and detention center in the Russian Compound remain active institutions. The practical question, therefore, is not simply whether these historic buildings should become a hotel, museum or cultural complex. First and foremost, it is this: Where would they go, and who would finance such a complex undertaking?
If and when that obstacle is resolved, it will be fascinating to see whether Jerusalem follows the path of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Berlin, Melbourne and Nara, finding a way to combine hospitality, preservation and historical memory in a place where prison bars stand today.
Yet amid Israel’s capital continuing security challenges, and with the need for readily available police forces in the city center only increasing, it is difficult to imagine such a transformation taking place anytime soon.
And so, while historic prisons around the world are being given new lives as hotels, museums and cultural destinations, in the heart of Israel’s capital, the bars remain firmly in place.
About the writer:
The author, Motti Verses is a seasoned hotel expert, traveler, writer, and videographer, and formerly served as Head of Public Relations for Hilton Hotels & Resorts in Israel. Today, as a travel writer and hospitality trends analyst, his insights and experiences are regularly featured in leading Israeli media outlets.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).