15 Helsinki Hotels, One of Them a Prison Until 2002
The Esplanadi grand dame where Winter War correspondents filed their reports, the tower the Soviet Control Commission took over in 1944, the county prison that held inmates until 2002, and Saarinen’s railway headquarters beside the station.
Helsinki’s hotels were a bank, a prison, a police headquarters, a railway office and a workers’ hall before they were hotels. This list has the Kämp, where foreign correspondents filed their Winter War dispatches, the Torni, requisitioned by the Soviet-led Allied Control Commission from 1944 to 1947, the former county prison on Katajanokka, with rooms made from two or three cells apiece, and Paasitorni, where a red lantern in the tower signalled the start of the 1918 uprising.
The list is grouped by character, not ranked. Each hotel’s name links to its own site, so you see the current rate and book direct.
Grand dames of the centre
Hotel Kämp · Kluuvi / city centre
The Kämp opened in 1887 under the restaurateur Carl Kämp in a Pohjoisesplanadi building designed by Theodor Höijer. Sibelius, Gallen-Kallela and Eino Leino drank here, and foreign correspondents covering the Winter War filed their reports from the hotel. The original was demolished in 1965 and rebuilt behind a replica facade as a bank headquarters; it reopened as a hotel in 1999.
NH Collection Helsinki Grand Hansa · Kluuvi / city centre
The Seurahuone name dates to 1833, when the city’s first society house opened on Senate Square in what is now Helsinki City Hall. The hotel moved into Armas Lindgren’s 1914 building opposite the Central Station and traded there for over a century. It reopened on 1 May 2024 as NH Collection’s first hotel in Finland, joining the old Seurahuone with the neighbouring Hansa block and the New Student House.
Solo Sokos Hotel Torni · Kamppi
The Torni was completed in 1931 to designs by Bertel and Valter Jung, and its fourteen storeys made it Helsinki’s tallest building for decades, by the hotel’s account. The Soviet-led Allied Control Commission requisitioned it as its headquarters from 1944 to 1947. Sokos Hotels publishes its own roll of famous guests, from Soviet officers to Finnish artists and spies.
Buildings that changed jobs
Home Hotel Katajanokka · Katajanokka
The Katajanokka is the former Helsinki County Prison: the oldest cell block dates from 1837 and the main red-brick wing from 1888, and it held prisoners until 2002. It reopened as a hotel in 2007 with rooms made from two or three cells apiece; the perimeter wall still rings the garden. It traded under the Clarion Collection name until Strawberry renamed the brand Home Hotel in 2025.
Hotel Lilla Roberts · Kaartinkaupunki
The Lilla Roberts occupies a 1909 building by Selim A. Lindqvist, built as Helsinki’s municipal electricity works and later used as the city’s police headquarters. It opened as a hotel in 2015 after a conversion by YIT, with an Art Deco interior, and is part of Kämp Collection Hotels, which Strawberry bought in 2019.
Scandic Grand Central Helsinki · Kluuvi / city centre
The Grand Central occupies Eliel Saarinen’s railway administration building beside Helsinki Central Station, completed in 1909, a decade before the station itself. The building was the Finnish State Railways’ headquarters until the conversion; the hotel opened in 2021 and is Scandic’s largest in Finland, by the company’s account.
Hotel St. George · Kamppi
The St. George was built in 1890 by Onni Tarjanne for the Finnish Literature Society, with a printing works on the premises. It opened as a hotel in 2018; Ai Weiwei’s dragon sculpture Tianwu hangs in the Wintergarden. The name comes from the street, Yrjönkatu, Finnish for St George’s Street.
Scandic Paasi · Hakaniemi / Siltasaari
The Paasi is attached to Paasitorni, the Helsinki Workers’ House, a granite Jugend hall by Karl Lindahl completed in 1908. A red lantern lit in its tower on 26 January 1918 signalled the start of the Red uprising in the Finnish Civil War. The hotel wing by K2S Architects opened in 2012.
Waldorf Astoria Helsinki · Kruununhaka
The Waldorf Astoria opened in December 2023 as The Hotel Maria, in four nineteenth-century buildings around a courtyard in Kruununhaka. It joined Hilton on 20 August 2025 as Waldorf Astoria Helsinki, the brand’s first hotel in the Nordics. The Maria name came from Mariankatu, the street named for Empress Maria Feodorovna.
Jugend and design
Klaus K · Kamppi / Design District
Klaus K occupies a 1912 Jugend building at the top of Bulevardi. The Hotel Klaus Kurki opened in the building in 1938, and Marc and Mia Skvorc relaunched it as Klaus K in 2005, billing it Finland’s first design hotel. The interiors riff on the Kalevala, with rooms themed Mystical, Passion, Desire and Envy.
Home Hotel Jugend · Kamppi
The castle-like building at Lönnrotinkatu 29 was completed in 1903 as Vanha Poli, the Polytechnic students’ union house, by the architects Usko Nyström, Petrelius and Penttilä. It became the Hotel Linna, then GLO Hotel Art, and Strawberry renamed it Home Hotel Jugend in 2025. The vaulted lobby and the tower rooms survive from the student era, by the hotel’s account.
Hotel Helka · Kamppi / Töölö border
The Helsinki YWCA has run a hotel in this 1928 building since it was built, by the hotel’s account. The rooms use Alvar Aalto’s Artek furniture, with a canopy photograph of Finnish nature over each bed. Accor has announced that it becomes ibis Styles Helsinki Helka in 2027, the group’s first hotel in Finland.
Mid-century and state occasions
Original Sokos Hotel Vaakuna · Kluuvi / city centre
Erkki Huttunen designed the Sokos department store and hotel block beside the Central Station, completed in 1952 for the Helsinki Olympic Games. The SOK cooperative built it as its flagship and still runs it under the Sokos Hotels brand. Its tenth-floor restaurant and roof terrace look over the station square and Mannerheimintie.
Marski by Scandic · Kamppi / city centre
The Marski opened in 1962 on Mannerheimintie, named after Marski, the Finns’ nickname for Marshal Mannerheim. Einari Teräsvirta designed the modernist block, by the hotel’s account. Scandic gutted and relaunched it in 2019 as Marski by Scandic.
Hilton Helsinki Kalastajatorppa · Munkkiniemi
Kalastajatorppa began in 1915 as a restaurant on a fisherman’s croft on Laajalahti bay; the name means fisherman’s cottage. The hotel building and the Round Hall ballroom date from the late 1930s, to designs by Jarl Eklund, by the hotel’s account. Finnish press lists state guests from Ronald Reagan to Vladimir Putin, and the Finnish State Guesthouse stands next door.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are these hotels ranked?
No. The groups sort them by character, and the order within each group carries no meaning.
What made a hotel interesting enough for this list?
A story. Every entry was a grand dame with a documented past, a building that had another job first, a Jugend or design house with a name attached, or a mid-century hotel tied to the state. Comfort alone did not qualify.
Why are there no prices?
Rates change daily and a priced list goes stale in a month. Each hotel’s name links to its own site, so you see the current rate and book direct.
Where should I stay to be near the ferries?
The Katajanokka and Kruununhaka hotels sit closest to the Viking Line and Tallinn ferry terminals and to the Suomenlinna ferry from Market Square. The city-centre hotels around the Central Station sit ten minutes’ walk from the same quays and next to the trains.
Which hotel puts me closest to the day trips on this site?
Most day trips from Helsinki run to Porvoo, to Suomenlinna by ferry, to Nuuksio national park, to Fiskars village, or across to Tallinn by ferry. The hotels around the Central Station sit closest to the coach pickups and the trains; the Katajanokka hotels sit closest to the Tallinn ferries.