Element Detroit at the Metropolitan – Michigan, USA
Where Neo-Gothic grandeur gives an unlikely extended-stay hotel some serious Detroit drama.
Why DNA Hotels Loves It
● Occupies the spectacular 1925 Metropolitan Building, once the centre of Detroit’s jewellery trade and rescued after nearly four decades of abandonment.
● An unusual collision of Element’s clean, contemporary aesthetic with ornate Neo-Gothic architecture, gargoyles and historic craftsmanship.
● The Monarch Club rooftop turns one of downtown Detroit’s great architectural survivors into a place to experience the city rather than simply admire its restoration.
From Diamonds to Detroit Comeback
There are few Element hotels with a backstory like this one. Element Detroit at the Metropolitan occupies the 14-storey Metropolitan Building, designed by Weston & Ellington and completed in 1925. Conceived as a vertical centre for Detroit’s jewellery industry, its workshops and offices were once filled with diamond cutters, goldsmiths, silversmiths and watchmakers. Then came decline. The building closed in the late 1970s and stood vacant for decades, deteriorating to the point where demolition appeared increasingly likely. Its eventual restoration returned one of downtown’s most distinctive landmarks to life. Look up and the old Metropolitan is anything but restrained: Gothic arches, elaborate stonework, pinnacles and gargoyles give it an almost cinematic presence among Detroit’s towers.
Element with a Gothic Twist
Inside that dramatic shell sits something unexpected: an Element hotel. The brand is normally associated with bright contemporary spaces, natural materials, sustainability and the practicalities of longer stays. Here, that understated vocabulary plays against the building’s much more theatrical architecture. Historic stonework and decorative details have been preserved rather than recreated as pastiche, while contemporary interventions remain deliberately restrained. It is precisely that contrast that makes the hotel interesting — modern simplicity inside a building that has absolutely no interest in being minimal. The 110 rooms and suites continue the Element formula with plenty of daylight and an emphasis on functional living. Many include kitchens, making the hotel particularly suited to longer stays without giving it the anonymous feeling of a conventional extended-stay property.
The Monarch Above Detroit
The hotel’s personality changes again when you reach the roof. The Monarch Club occupies the Metropolitan’s rooftop, surrounded by the towers and architectural ornament of downtown Detroit. Inside, it feels intimate and club-like; outside, terraces open towards the skyline, with the building’s own Gothic details becoming part of the scenery. It gives the Metropolitan something it never had in its jewellery-making days: a public vantage point from which to experience the city around it.
A Different Kind of Adaptive Reuse
Element Detroit is interesting precisely because the combination shouldn’t necessarily work. A mainstream extended-stay concept inside an extravagant Neo-Gothic former jewellery building sounds like an awkward marriage. Instead, the restraint of the hotel allows the Metropolitan itself to remain the star. After decades standing empty, a building created for people who worked with precious materials has become the precious object itself. And in a city filled with remarkable architectural comebacks, the Metropolitan’s resurrection is one of the most satisfying.
