Elena de Cobre, a Member of Design Hotels┢

The new Elena de Cobre in León, Mexico, is decidedly two-faced. At its base, the hotel resides in a 19th-century casona—the city’s oldest restored mansion—with original colonial-style architecture and details, such as the wooden and clay pergola, decorative door and window frames, and quarry stone elements. On top is local talent Mario Plasencia’s Brutalist masterpiece, at once juxtaposed with history and inexorably pulling the city into the future.